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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25733785">Sick Of Losing Soulmates</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyAngel/pseuds/CrazyAngel'>CrazyAngel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Right Back Where We Started (Again) [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season/Series 02, Slice of Life, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, Time Travel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:40:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,417</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25733785</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyAngel/pseuds/CrazyAngel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together?<br/>Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences."</p><p>Back in 2019, things are the same but also different. The Hargreeves have messed with the timeline way too much and some things clearly aren't the same — like giving the chance for Klaus to meet Dave again.<br/>Klaus knows nothing about reincarnation or if it was really he and his brothers fault for this, but he'll take the chance anyway.<br/>Even if this Dave is blind now.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave/Klaus Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Right Back Where We Started (Again) [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866679</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>157</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. I See You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Rating bumped to M for mild smut in the future chapters.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>What a strange being you are, God knows where I would be</em><br/>
<em>If you hadn't found me, sitting all alone in the dark</em><br/>
<em>A dumb screenshot of youth</em><br/>
<em>Watch how a cold broken teen</em><br/>
<em>Will desperately lean on a superglued human of proof</em><br/>
<em>What the hell would I be, without you (what the hell would I be)</em><br/>
<em>Brave face talk so lightly, hide the truth (hide the truth)</em><br/>
<em>'Cause I'm sick of losing soulmates, so where do we begin</em><br/>
<em>I can finally see, you're as fucked up as me</em><br/>
<em>So how do we win?</em><br/>
<em>Yeah, I'm sick of losing soulmates, won't be alone again</em><br/>
<em>I can finally see, you're as fucked up as me</em><br/>
<em>So how do we win?</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>(Sick of Losing Soulmates - Dodie Clark)</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>There was pain and heat and pain and pressure and pain and dark and pain and dark and pain, pain, pain - he couldn’t breathe, it hurt so bad. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs were on fire. His lips had cracked and he could taste blood in his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was something weighing him down, holding him down, and after what seemed like a thousand years the ringing in his ears reduced enough that he could hear the screams and sobs and cries around him, the gentle plink plink of metal cooling, somewhere close (too close) the hiss and spit of fire crackling through fabric or paper or some other material that burned too hot and too fast. Blood in his mouth, salt and metal, and everything was so goddamn dark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was so goddamn dark and he couldn’t see and he couldn’t move and when he tried - fuck - when he tried it was like every bone was being tugged out of its joint, tendons stretching nearly to the point of snapping off clean like an old rubber band pushed past its limit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was so goddamn dark and so goddamn loud and he couldn’t breathe, but somewhere in the dark someone said his name in a voice he almost recognized and he briefly considered calling back in response before nothingness overtook him, dragging him down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a while there was nothing - which was, to be entirely frank, infinitely better than the alternative.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And there was nothing for such a long time that he almost didn’t notice when he ascended slowly up into consciousness - the dark was too deep, his head packed too thickly in cotton wool, the gentle hiss and whisper of the space around him too much like the quiet rhythmic murmur of his own heart - and it wasn’t until he heard the sound of a door opening that he realized that he was awake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was awake, but god - god, he was so tired. He felt like every bone was weighted down with lead, every muscle thickened, his blood thudding sluggishly through his veins like tar. In the back of his head he could hear his mother’s voice chiding him for not looking up and saying hello and introducing himself to the stranger who had just opened the door, but all he could bring himself to do was turn his head on his pillow toward the sound. He couldn’t sit up. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even open his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re awake,” came a voice; it was quiet, barely louder than whatever it was making that low humming whisper, quiet and soft and careful. He hadn’t realized until the voice rolled over him that his ears were still ringing slightly, a shallow tinnitus that was almost more of a lullaby, white noise just on the edge of reality - but the voice cut through it smooth and easy like a fish through water. “How are you feeling?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tired,” he said, and god, god - his throat hurt so much. He felt so tight and used up and exhausted, it was so much. It was too much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The creaking of a chair. The telltale sound of plastic casters on linoleum tile. Then a hand - cool and dry and careful, slipping over the skin of his wrist to probe gently at the artery there to feel his pulse. “I can believe that,” the voice said, pitched a little high but so quiet and so careful and so so soft. “You’ve had a long week, Lieutenant.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The air had smelled like dust and antibacterial soap and hand sanitizer but the owner of the voice had brought in something else, something homey and smooth like cool rose tea on a hot day, and he was so tired and his bones were so heavy and his muscles were so thick and… and the hand on his wrist was like a lifeline. The rose tea scent was like a lifeline. He could feel himself slipping back under, back into the quiet embrace of nothingness, and as he did the hand slid gently over his skin to pull away—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t,” he breathed, clutching weakly. Fumbling to lace their fingers together and only half succeeding. “Don’t - don’t go. It’s so dark in here. Please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lieutenant—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please,” he said again, feeling nothingness creep in under the door of his consciousness. Somewhere in the room (or maybe it was somewhere in his head) the hum and whisper grew insistently, buzzing in his ears. “Please just - just call me Dave. It’s so dark.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Casters on linoleum tile. The cool, dry hand tightening on his own. “Dave,” said the voice. “Go back to sleep, Dave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s dark,” Dave breathed, slipping below the surface - and the last thing he remembered was that voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” it said into the pitch black, gentle tones echoing toward him as though over a great distance. “I’m sorry."</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>When the doors hissed open, the way at the front desk barely glanced up before going back to she was doing. "Klaus, you're late." She said, biting her lip as she flipped through a handful of papers. "You know the rules, buddy."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I know, Anna, and I'm so so sorry." He said, smiling. "Pinky promise it won't happen again."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She rolled her eyes and chewed on the insert of her cheek. "Your job here is gonna be suspended if this keeps going, you know right? They have an eye on you till you complete your sentence."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus sighed. "I know, dear, and I'll try to be better. So what do we have for today for me?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus hated hospitals, and he hated to pretend that everything was okay when he had to step in that place. Too much death in those corridors and walls; and as a beacon of the dead, he had seen all kinds of spirits and made his best to ignore all of them — to which he was incredibly becoming better now that he was full sober since they came back to 2019.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he is Klaus Hargreeves and shit happens — as well as relapses. And with the whole Ben being gone now, Klaus mournerd, after 17 years, in the only way he knew how to deal with his emotions. But being out of the loop for three years had changed things, and when he was just up to get what he wanted from his dealer, the police showed up.</span>
</p><p><span>Now here he was, doing mandatory voluntary work at a hospital as his sentence. It wasn't much, he mostly did the cleaning, picked up dirty sheets and scrubs, threw things in the trash or incinerator, sometimes interacted with patients to distract them while the real professionals did their jobs.If he was to</span> be honest, it could've been so much worse, he could've spent a few more years locked in jail again, so he took the less fucked up route. And with that, came a surprise he couldn't have expected, but latched his hands onto it since the first time he saw the name written on Anna's archives on his first day. </p><p>
  <span>He could almost hear Ben complaining about it, about him being late and shit — except this time, the only thing he heard was Ben's voice in his imagination. Never again the real thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Well, we got your Lieutenant guy. He's lucid now and..." The nurse opened her mouth - and flinched as a crashing noise rang down the corridor. She went pale and both of them spun to face the source of the sound, followed up now by incomprehensible shouting. "They’re telling him what happened today.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe it meant something that she knew he was running late. Maybe everything meant something, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care, because the word lucid had passed her lips and he couldn’t think about anything else.He took a step forward, heart in his throat - but something caught in his sleeve, and when he looked down it was her hand tangled in the fabric.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not today, Klaus,” she said, voice uncharacteristically gentle. “You don’t see the aftermath. I do. Don’t go to him today.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He needs—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Trust me,” she said, and Klaus could feel the sincerity and the earnestness and the care flowing through her into her hand and up his arm and wrapping around his heart. “Trust me. Go work with some other patient today.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t just leave him alone,” Klaus choked out, turning wild eyes on her face. “I can’t just let him go through this without—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He doesn’t know who you are.” But the look in her eyes told him that she knew he’d already given in, and her fingers dropped from his sleeve. “You may have been visiting him for weeks, but he’s been on morphine the whole time. You’re just some stranger to him. He doesn’t know who you are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Klaus said finally, looking down the corridor at the familiar doorway. “Well. He never did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a lie, of course. But she would never understand, even if he tried to explain.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>For a while Dave wished that he could go back to nothingness, but they wouldn’t increase his morphine after they’d already started weaning him off of it - so instead he just floated on the surface in the impenetrable dark, thinking over and over and over and over about all the things he’d never do again, never experience again, never see again. Never see a flame. Never see a sunset. Never see his mother’s face, the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed, the silver strands in her hair growing ever more numerous each year.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the doctors had come in they’d pulled up chairs next to his bed and he’d asked when the bandages could come off because he was bored he was bored he just wanted to read a damn book this was killing him—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And instead of telling him when the bandages would come off they’d told him it almost didn’t matter when the bandages would come off. They told him that he’d never see again. They told him that the shrapnel had cut through the optic nerves and they’d done everything they could to salvage it but he’d been dying. He’d been dying, and they’d had to prioritize saving his life over saving his sight, and if the trauma medic hadn’t done such a good job then he might have slipped into unconsciousness and then smoothly out of existence while still trapped under the bricks that had come down when the bomb went off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That trauma medic saved your life, Lieutenant,” the doctor had said, his voice low and swinging like a pendulum. (Dave thought of him as a grandfather clock, tall and wooden and clockwork.) “If he hadn’t done everything right—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He should have let me die,” Dave had interrupted. “He should have let me fucking die. He should’ve just—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lieutenant—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After that… after that he’d embarrassed himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If his tear ducts still worked maybe he would have cried. If there wasn’t still scar tissue healing in his throat (from where the shrapnel had hit him in the face as he yelled at the people nearby to get out, get away from the blast) maybe he would have screamed, but he’d settled for yelling and pulling out his IV (poorly, cause he couldn’t fucking see it, he couldn’t fucking see it he’d never fucking see it) and knocking something to the floor (a tray? a clipboard? it hit the floor and the sound of the impact rang in his ears) and trying to get out of bed but somebody, two somebodies, three somebodies had caught him by the shoulders and forced him down as he yelled as loud as he could manage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Someone stabbed a hypodermic needle into him and as the sedative took hold he tried like hell to hold on but still found himself slipping.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’ll be okay,” the doctor had said (tick tock, tick tock) with a voice wooden and and tall and clockwork, “it’ll be better soon. When you wake up we can talk again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last thing Dave remembered was his lips parting and his lungs sucking in a breath and the sound of his own voice. “He should have just let me die.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That had been four days ago, and Dave had to grudgingly admit that it had gotten very very slightly better. The pain of the loss wasn’t as sharp. The sting of it wasn’t so acute, it didn’t feel like a thick black poison creeping under his skin and through his blood and around his heart - constricting and choking him and pulling him down a dark hole of despair with the realization of what he’d lost.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were weaning him off the morphine, sure, but for the time being he was still on it a little. A small dose, nothing like the lead blanket of narcotics that they’d had him under before as he’d healed past the point of impenetrable agony, but enough to keep his senses fuzzy and his head light and full of air. Even so, he was bored. He was bored. He couldn’t read a book. He’d tried watching TV but just got frustrated after five minutes of almost silence followed up by a gasp of out-of-context horror and the sound of a palm against someone’s face. (What had happened? Who knew. Certainly not him.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the second day he’d started playing a game with himself as he lay in the hospital bed. He’d worked out which nurse wore which shoes, the varying clicks and squeaks against the tile as they walked, and which sounds belonged to the people with the gentlest touch on the IV. To the people who warmed the stethoscope before pressing it to his skin. The ones who ignored him or talked to him, the ones who knew his name and the ones who barely looked at his chart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After he’d memorized the footsteps (it only took a few shifts) he’d gotten bored again and tried memorizing breathing patterns, the telltale notes in someone’s voice that would leak through when they exhaled, the difference between the nurses who smoked and those who didn’t. On the third day he could recognize every nurse by their walk. By their breathing. (Some of them walked like balloons. Some walked like tigers. Some breathed like punctured accordions. His favorite breathed like the oxygen machine they’d taken out of his room last week - slow and heavy and even like she was always thinking very carefully about something.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the fourth day there was the sound of a pair of shoes he didn’t recognize in the hallway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t that unusual of an occurrence. Visitors came and went, patients came and went, residents came and went. Once one of the nurses had apparently broken the heel on one of her shoes halfway through her shift and had to change into sneakers, and he’d been thrown off all day. But this pair of shoes, this walk, this sound - the gentle squeak of rubber on tile, footsteps close together but not hurried in a way that suggested anxiety combined with long legs - this pair of shoes stopped in front of his door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of the things he’d always wondered was whether his remaining senses would heighten if he ever lost one of them. (If he lost his hearing, would his sense of smell work harder to catch up? If he lost his sense of taste, would he be able to see the difference between a sweet pepper and a spicy one?) He wasn’t sure yet if they would, but when that pair of shoes stopped in front of his door he held his breath and waited.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t either of his parents, he could tell that much. It wasn’t anyone on his squadron who’d been by over the last week. It wasn’t a nurse, or at least not one he’d had before. And whoever it was - they seemed worried somehow. Uncertain. Even through the wood of the door Dave could hear a hitch in their breath almost like they’d been running, could hear their shoes squeak as they shifted their weight from one hip to the other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A hand on the door. The clicking of the latch. The sound of the hinges squeaking quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello,” Dave said, inclining his head upward and smiling like his mother had always taught him. “How are you? What’s your name?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An quick inhale, shaky and weak. One of the shoes took a short step back like whoever it was at the door had to steady themselves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” said the voice (a voice he almost recognized, like he’d heard it in a dream - so quiet and so careful and like cool rose tea on a hot day). “I’m fine. I’m great. Are you… how are you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave shrugged. “Been better,” he admitted, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “I hate to ask again, but what’s your name? I’m still…” He gestured wordlessly at the bandages wrapped around his head, covering his eyes. “I - I’m still learning to recognize people by their voices.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You probably don’t reme–eh know me,” said the voice. The door closed. The shoes moved closer, and there was the creaking of the chair next to his bed. Plastic casters on linoleum tile. “I’ve visited before, but you were usually…asleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or stoned out of my damn mind, more like.” The voice sucked in a quick shocked breath. “It’s okay. I was on a lot of morphine. You can say it. I’m lucid now. What’s your name?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Klaus,” said the voice—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—and a brief flash of visual memory shot through Dave’s head like a lightning bolt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus was a familiar name, a name he had heard countless times, not in person but in his dreams. Just the mention of the name made his heart rate speed up for an unknown reason - as if his body knew something he couldn't remember. He had flashes of green eyes and sweet smiles, dark curls on his fingers, all evoquent by that single name. It seemed like a déjà vu kind of moment, as if he had met a Klaus before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nice to meet you, Klaus,” Dave said, extending his right hand in the general direction of Klaus’s voice. “I’m David Katz.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Klaus said, and then there was the feel of a cool, dry hand over his palm. Cool, dry fingers tightening over the back of his hand. “I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It hurt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It hurt, seeing Dave like this. With everything he knew about Dave and all the moments only he could remember, it was like a bad déjà vu moment. He’d always seemed so smart and so careful and yet still somehow so easily flustered and hesitant. He was a natural leader but he was also the kind of person who wasn’t afraid to listen, he spoke too quickly sometimes but he always apologized when he’d caused harm, and…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>…and it just hurt, seeing him like this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was still in his hospital gown, light blue with white piping and loose knots at the back of his neck. There was an IV on his arm and a blood oxygen sensor on the tip of one of the fingers on his left hand and his curls had grown out on top over the last couple of weeks so that it hung a little over the bandages covering his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus had tried not to stare at the bandages at first, back a few weeks ago when he hadn’t been able to stop himself from visiting him in the ICU, but then he’d realized that it didn’t matter whether he stared or not because even if the lieutenant had been lucid (and he hadn’t been) he wouldn’t have known to be bothered by how closely Klaus studied his features, the extent of his wounds, the gauze over his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was still handsome. His lips were still the same. His neck was straight and his shoulders well-muscled and his collar bones were sharp under the loose, sagging opening of the hospital gown. But his eyes…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus had always liked Dave's eyes, and now he knew they’d never be the same again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The doctors had done a good job. The scars on Dave’s face were still streaked pink but they were fading quickly and soon Klaus knew he’d only notice them if he was looking for them, if the light shone on him a certain way. His voice had always been deep but his mouth had been open when the bomb had gone off and the pre-loaded shrapnel had gone flying (shards of glass and small nails and all manner of innocuous things that were terrible when traveling at 300kmph) and now when he spoke Klaus could hear a new sort of gravel to it, the subtle undertones of a throat left shredded and ragged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The scars were the worst right at the edge of the bandages, creeping under the gauze like spiderwebs. Klaus was almost curious what it looked like underneath, but it had been weeks since the blast and he was never curious enough to ask to be there when the bandages were changed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How are you doing, Lieutenant Katz?” Klaus managed, after a few moments of silence. “Are they treating you all right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m bored,” the lieutenant said, sighing and flopping back against the hospital bed. “TV isn’t interesting if you can’t watch it. I’ve always hated audio books and I - I obviously can’t read—” He gestured helplessly at his face, and bit his lip for a second before letting out a pained cough of wry laughter. “You know I’ve - I’ve started playing a game with myself?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus glanced up to see the smile tweaking at the corners of Dave’s lips. It wasn’t enough to dimple his cheeks, but it was a smile. “A game?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve been memorizing all the nurses’ shoes,” the lieutenant said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. “The sounds they make. The way they walk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How…how’s that been going for you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lieutenant shrugged. “Got bored again pretty fast,” he said, and now Klaus was beginning to hear the slight slur in his voice left over from the small dose of morphine they were still giving him. “Only took a couple of shifts to learn everybody. Switched to breathing patterns, but that was even faster to learn. I’m not sure what else to learn next.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heartbeats,” Klaus said, and bit his tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lieutenant - well, he didn’t look up because the bandages covered his eyes, but he cocked his chin to the side curiously. “Heartbeats?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heartbeats,” Klaus repeated stupidly. “I - I don’t know how accurate it is, but… but in, uh, I used to read comics when I was a younger—” Okay, it was last week, but technically he was younger then. “—and there’s this one comic character who, um, who can’t see, and he—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daredevil,” the lieutenant interrupted, his voice distant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Yeah, Daredevil. And he learns how to tell people’s emotions by listening to their heartbeats. I don’t know how realistic it is—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sounds like a challenge.” The lieutenant’s voice was softening, going low and quiet as he settled back against the mattress. “Sounds fuckin'… sounds nearly fuckin’ impossible.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was a stupid idea, you don’t have to—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nah,” the lieutenant sighed, shaking his head drunkenly. The morphine was pulling him under again. “Nah, I like it. I’m gonna try it out. See if I can do it. It’ll be harder than shoes or breathing patterns.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus watched him for a few seconds as his breathed slowed and deepened into sleep before pushing the chair out and standing up to leave. God - he’d finally had something resembling a conversation with the lieutenant and he’d messed it all up by talking about a comic book superhero? Way to go, Klaus. Way to mess everything up on the very first—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Klaus,” came the lieutenant’s voice behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus swallowed, hand still on the doorknob. He turned. “Yes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought I told you,” Dave breathed, “to call me Dave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dave,” Klaus said after a second. He’d remembered? He’d remembered. How could he have remembered? He’d been… well, okay, to put it in Dave’s words he’d been stoned out of his mind. “Okay Dave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good,” Dave said, and fell asleep.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Theory of Infinite Parallels</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After six weeks the bandages came off once and for all and when he felt his face the skin that had been underneath felt soft and damp and distressingly elastic, like he was touching a maggot. There were divots in his skin, scars and trails left behind by the shrapnel screaming over him across him through him, and he would trace them carefully with his fingertips when he knew he was alone.</p><p>He knew he’d never been particularly handsome, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe he could… maybe he could find somebody else who was blind, right? They could navigate the world together, bumping into things and each other and not caring what they looked like. He had time now. He couldn’t stay in the military - what would he do? The honorary discharge paperwork had arrived the other day along with a medal and a letter of gratitude that one of the nurses had had to read to him.</p><p>He found himself wishing that Klaus had been there to read it instead, until he broke down right at the end (“We offer our sincerest condolences,” the nurse had read) and was so, so grateful that Klaus wasn’t there to see him like this.</p><p>Klaus did his best to visit him everyday between his chores at the hospital, things that didn’t involve dropping everything and racing to Dave’s hospital room (he’d finally been moved to the rehab unit, thank god) whenever Dave got bored. The faceless man would smuggle in tangerines(how Klaus knew they were his favourites, he didn't know) and those little brainteaser puzzles that Dave could feel his way through and on one memorable occasion he’d brought in a copy of the monthly newsletter and read out all the best gossip in his cheerful airy tone, trying to hold back laughter as he explained context, about who had been caught doing what, at the sheer size and severity of the trouble they’d gotten into.</p><p>Dave had peeled the tangerines himself, struggling with the dimpled peel, prodding at the meat of the fruit to find the indentations of each little perfect section. They smelled orange - bright and clean and sharp - in the same way that Klaus smelled like cigarettes and vanilla - soft and gentle and just very slightly warm. (Back when he still had the bandages Dave once found himself wondering what he smelled like to Klaus before remembering that Klaus had all kinds of cues to recognize him, not just sound and smell. After that he’d asked for a pair of sunglasses, and tried to keep them on whenever Klaus visited. He’d told himself that it was only polite to hide the scarring.)</p><p>They’d had to teach him how to dress himself again. He’d had to start wearing t-shirts with an obvious tag at the back of his neck so that he could tell whether he was wearing it front to back. He’d always liked baggy clothing before everything had… before everything, but now when he wore large clothing he felt like he was floating. Like he couldn’t keep his balance. So he switched to jeans for the feel of the seam all the way down to his ankle. He switched to fitted t-shirts so that he could keep track of where his skin ended and the world began. He’d started asking for long sleeved shirts even in the middle of summer so that he could better tell where his arms were, but rejected gloves because they made him feel even more blind than he did already.</p><p>On the day they were moving him to a different section of the rehab clinic Dave was sitting on his bed with his hands smoothing over the denim on his thighs, feeling each thread under his fingertips, when he heard the sound of Klaus’s shoes in the hall. The sunglasses were tucked into his collar by one arm and he struggled to pull them out, feeling for the nose guards with his fingertips so that he put them on the right way up, and only just had enough time to tuck his hands back into his lap when knuckles rapped on the door.</p><p>“Who is it?” Dave called - but it wasn’t a question. He already knew.</p><p>The latch clicked. The hinges creaked. Klaus’s shoes, squeaking on the tile. Klaus’s scent, like cool rose tea on a hot day. Then Klaus’s voice: “Like you really have to ask.”</p><p>Dave shrugged, spreading his hands wide in a gesture of innocence. “Keeping up appearances.”</p><p>“How goes the game?”</p><p>“Still can’t tell the difference between lying and recent physical exertion,” Dave replied. He shrugged again, following the sound of Klaus’s footsteps (his breathing, his heartbeat) as he wandered across the room toward the window. “I can hear heartbeats most of the time now, though. Even when people are talking. I’ve been practicing.”</p><p>“On who?” The shades were up - he could hear Klaus’s voice echoing oddly off the glass.</p><p>“Nurses, mostly.” He swallowed. “On you a little. When you’re around. I hope you don’t mind.”</p><p>“Why would I mind?” Klaus had turned his head away from the window, his voice coming straight back toward him from the corner. “I’m the one who gave you the idea. I should expect you to try to listen to my heartbeat.” He hesitated, and Dave could hear the quick inhalation of uncertainty in the moment of almost-silence. “What do you notice? In my heartbeat?”</p><p>“It’s always a little fast,” Dave said, almost not wanting to give up his secrets. He’d kept his inside knowledge of Klaus’s heart rate to himself for a while now, listening intently for it when Klaus came to visit, turning the memory of the sound over and over and over once Klaus had left again. “I mean when you first come in - it’s always a little fast, but it seems to even out.” He inclined his head upward, a mannerism left over from when he would have once looked up to meet Klaus’s eye. “Do you exercise before you come to visit me?”</p><p>“There’s a nurse who makes me nervous,” Klaus stuttered out after a second. “Even if she’s not here I get a little anxious, like… what if I run into her? Feels like she'll bite my head off like a shark.”</p><p>“The one who smokes unfiltered, Madalena is her name I think” Dave replied, nodding his head. “And she wears inexpensive lipstick. I can smell it. At least I’m pretty sure that’s who you mean - she’s a terror.”</p><p>“Probably,” Klaus said, voice distant, weak.“Um, you said you were being moved today?”</p><p>“Long term care,” Dave said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. (He’d never once dreamed that he’d been in the long term care ward of a hospital in his twenties. He felt like an old man and he wasn’t even twenty-nine for another three months.) “They’re going to start teaching me how to be independent again. Teach me braille. Stuff like that.” He bit his lip. “It's… I’m looking forward to it, I guess.”</p><p>“It’s a step forward.”</p><p>“It’s a step.”</p><p>Klaus fell quiet.</p><p>Part of Dave hated these moments, where Klaus was at a loss of what to say in the face of Dave’s sheer pitifulness. He hated it, he hated it so much. He hadn’t quite gotten over wishing that they had just let him die there in the fallout of the blast, had left him to rot in the dust and saved someone who could have lived a full life. If he could just… if he could just see Klaus maybe it would be better.</p><p>Part of Dave hated these moments, but the rest of him almost reveled in them. The moments where Klaus went still and Dave could hear the steady even in-and-out of his breath. The staccato thump of his heart in his chest. The way he shifted, the way he moved all the time even when he was standing still.</p><p>“They’ll probably be here soon,” Klaus said suddenly, stepping forward. “To help move you over. I should—”</p><p>Dave reached out and felt a surge of pride as he managed to catch Klaus’s wrist on the first try. (He’d heard the swish of it in the air, calculated the distance. He’d been practicing throwing things and catching them again and all of it culminated in this tiny shining moment of success.) “Wait,” he said, feeling the hoarseness of his scarred throat as he spoke. “Wait.”</p><p>“Dave—”</p><p>“You could come with me,” Dave persisted, standing up and shoving his sunglasses self-consciously up the bridge of his nose. “If - I mean, only if you wanted to keep visiting, if you came with me then you’d know what room I was in - or whatever,” he finished stupidly, letting Klaus’s wrist go, feeling like an idiot.</p><p>It was stupid, but he was lonely. His parents visited when they could, but it was maybe once a week. He’d been practically married to his job and didn’t have a girlfriend. His friends from the base had seemed to forget about him one by one, seeming to grow annoyed with his slow progress and his complaints and the way he looked without the sunglasses on. Only Klaus kept coming by.</p><p>Dave still wasn’t sure why Klaus kept coming, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. What if it was pity? What if Klaus’s dated someone who worked in the hospital and he just swung by on his way from bringing them lunch? What if it was some community service program he was doing, some volunteer work to go on a resume?</p><p>He just wanted Klaus to be his friend. He just wanted Klaus to come with him to the long term care ward. He just… he just wanted. (He couldn't figure out what he wanted. He couldn't admit it to himself.)</p><p>“Yeah,” Klaus’s voice carried over to him through the pervasive dark. Klaus’s hand, cool and dry, curling around his wrist. Klaus's scent, like coffee on a cold day. “Yeah, ‘or whatever.’ I’ll come with you.”</p><p>“Only if you want to keep visiting,” Dave repeated weakly.</p><p>“I do,” Klaus said, and tugged on his arm. “Come on. Let’s go check out your new room.”</p><p>While they walked through the hospital corridors, Dave's hand holding tightly on Klaus wrist, Klaus wondered if somehow this Dave recognized him. Because everything Klaus knew about him was almost the same: his favourite food was still plain hamburger with two pickles (Klaus had surprised him by sneaking one into his room one night and Dave looked like the happiest man alive), his favourite song was still '<em> The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' </em>, his favourite book of all time was still Dune(to which Klaus was desperately looking for a copy in braille so he could gift him), he still felt like an outsider in his own family. He looked, and talked, and laughed just like the Dave he met in Vietnam on his first time travel. Difference is, it wasn't Vietnam where he fought — in this timeline it was Afghanistan.</p><p>He had wondered and actually researched how could it be possible for Dave to exist in 2019 this time, he even crossed the path of reincarnation before scrapping it completely after figuring out that if his Dave had reincarnated he wouldn't have the same name not the same appearance. So he went through books about physics and timelines and parallel universes, and finally asked Five if such thing was possible — and he found out it was, actually.</p><p>Five explained to him about the theory of infinite parallels, and that a person's life wasn't really a line but a tree made of every decision one had made, which resulted in many different timelines with different versions of the same person. To which meant that there was a hundred different Klaus, just as there were a hundred different Dave's and sometimes, although rarely, one reality could merge and bleed into another — Five said he saw it happen a few times, with ordinary people from the future somehow ending up in the past or vice versa. </p><p>With the way he and his brothers messed with the timeline so much already, and Klaus especially messed with past Dave's life, one of this Dave's must've bled into his 
 timeline. So he concluded that his wish for Dave was so big that it somehow happened, like the universe deciding to give him another chance that he wasn't sure he deserved — after all he couldn't stop Dave from enlisting and he couldn't protect him from getting blinded — but he would take it anyway. After all, he was not sure if he would handle losing Dave again, not after he already did two times and especially now that he just lost Ben forever.</p><p>He needed grounding, he needed something or someone to keep him from hitting the rock bottom again because he felt that if he let himself go again, it would be for good this time with no coming back.</p><p>And he was trying. Oh God how he was trying. He was without drugs three years still, but had gone back to alcohol to drown his sorrows since their time in Dallas, which would be severely frowned upon by every  rehab therapist he'd ever met, but it was something he was not up to let go. As he wasn't sure of things in his life back home, he needed at least one comforting fixed thing.</p><p>He hadn't told Dave about this side of him yet, and wasn't sure how or when he would bring up the subject, but this was a worry for another day.</p><p>Klaus smiled at the receptionist of the Long Term Care unit, asking charismatically to where Mr. David Katz new room was, lying through his teeth that he was the one ordered to accompany the Lieutenant there. Dave could sense the lie in Klaus soft voice and almost wanted to laugh, but he made no objection to what the other was doing and simply let him control the situation. It seemed like a familiar situation somehow, with Klaus lying and playing around and Dave just going with it, making sure he didn't get into much trouble. Weirdly, it felt like they had done this before, more than once actually, despite never having met Klaus in his life before.</p><p>He wished he could see Klaus face, but his imagination did a good job too. He imagined his sly smile, his shining green eyes (his mind seemed seethed that Klaus eyes were green), his curly soft hair, the shapes of his face and lips. In his mind, Klaus was beautiful and he could bet his life that the real thing wasn't much different. </p><p>"Come on, Dave. Your new king's quarters wait for you." Klaus said cheerfully, pulling his hand.</p><p>As always, Klaus was the only reason for Dave's rare smiles in this hellish weeks.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Dancing With Your Ghost</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>"Why do you wear sunglasses all the time?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave paused, fingertips hovering over the page in front of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The scars on his face had faded and they’d given him a haircut, but it wasn’t the same military style - still the same short back and sides, sure, but the top was still long, a little like a mohawk. Klaus found it strangely endearing, the way it was always messy when he came in. Dave could shower by himself (they’d started with shampoo and body wash in differently shaped bottles and then moved to identical bottles with braille labeling once he’d advanced enough in his studies) but he never seemed to get the hang of combing his hair when it dried. It was always tousled, like a kid who’d been running around outside all day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My eyes don't…” Dave licked his lips. “There was a lot of shrapnel. In the blast, I mean. People have told me that my eyes… they don’t look normal. They make people uncomfortable. So…” He waved a hand over his face, fluttering his fingers to suggest something magical. “Sunglasses.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve just…” Klaus hesitated. He was about to tell a lie, and part of him wondered if Dave would know it. (Why the hell had he ever suggested that stupid heartbeat thing? Dave had actually started to pick things up. He’d figured it out the other day when Klaus had come in annoyed over his brothers. Klaus had tried lying to him about whether he’d eaten yet last week and Dave had nearly had a fit.) “I’ve just never seen your eyes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neither have I,” Dave replied, shrugging and turning his attention back down toward the page of braille on his lap. “Not like this, anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ah. Bad word choice. “I guess I mean—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hate this,” Dave said suddenly, shoving the book off his lap. It hit the carpet, bouncing once before resting open on its spine. “I fucking hate all of this. I hate braille, I hate having to have special headphones to watch tv, I hate not being able to read a normal goddamn newspaper, I hate - I hate this,” he finished stupidly, slumping forward and running his hands through his hair. “All of it. I should have just fucking died.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut the fuck up,” Klaus said - and bit his tongue. “God, I mean—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave lifted his head. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just… don’t say that,” Klaus stuttered out. He stood up and walked over to the window in the dim hope that Dave wouldn’t hear his heart speed up. “I don’t wanna hear you ever say that again, Dave. I’m serious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The fucking trauma medic should’ve just let me die,” Dave said, voice quiet. “Sorry. It’s just… it’s how I feel some days. Most days.” He seemed to consider the idea for a second. “Every day, maybe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The trauma medic should've…?” Klaus wrapped his arms around himself and stared out the window. He felt a pang of fury as he looked out over the horizon - the long term care ward was on the sixteenth floor and the city stretched out under them beautiful and shining like some perfect piece of spun glass - felt a pang of fury that Dave wouldn’t be able to see this. “Dave—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d apologize,” Dave interrupted. “But I’m not sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus was moving before he even realized it. Bringing his hand back. His pulse hummed in his ears. His eyes filled up and his vision blurred and he slapped Dave across the face before he thought to stop himself. Dave jerked back and choked out a gasp, hand flying to his cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t believe—” Klaus’s voice caught in his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been months. It had been months and he’d had nightmares every damn night, nightmares where Dave had died under his hands, sounds of shots all around as he screamed for the medic, nightmares about Dave leaving to enlist entering that bus that would lead to his ultimate death,nightmares and nightmares and nightmares. Dave never never left that mountain in the Shau Valley and it was a memory Klaus would never forget, having the love of his life die in his arms after an entire year together, dragging his body back to the camp, taking the dogtags and the vest from his cold body. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had looked between the mass of ghosts on those woods that night, mustering courage just so he could see Dave in ghost form at least one last time, before giving up and going to his tent to get the time traveling briefcase he had kept hidden under his cot. Maybe he could go back to the start of the day and change everything, maybe he would go to a completely different place in a completely different year — he didn't know, he just needed out. He wasn't thinking straight, he wasn't thinking at all, he just needed to go away as far as possible from that mountain, and that why when he was alone at the soldier's tent, all dirty from crawling on the forest ground and Dave's blood still on his hands, he opened the briefcase and let the blue light engulf him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were days where he would scratch at his skin and hands, as if he could see Dave's blood still on his skin, days spent on sobriety so he could try to conjure his ghost. Even when he and his brothers landed in Dallas, he spent part of his time using his influence to track Dave down, to try and save him, but yet again he failed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now, in 2019 this Dave had lived. He’d been the closest person to the blast of a bomb who’d lived. And now he was saying he wanted to die and Klaus couldn't—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I saw you die in my arms,Dave Katz.” Klaus’s heart was pumping hard and he knew Dave could hear it but for once he didn’t care, he didn’t care that Dave could know just exactly how over-excited he was. He hoped Dave knew. “You might not believe me, but I saw you die. February 21 of 1968, you took fire trying to defend the hill 689 in the A Shau Valley. You got shot and died in my arms as I cried for a fucking medic that never came. Now you're here in 2019 for whatever reason of the universe and you tell me that you'd rather be dead?” he stuttered out, realizing that his voice had gotten thick with tears. “You know what? I respected you so much, I looked up to you, I loved you so much that I followed you to the frontlines without question and I would fucking do it again because I love you. I was so fucking shocked and happy to know that there was David J Katz alive this time,and I’m sorry that in this timeline they couldn’t save your eyes but don’t sit there and try to tell me they should have let you fucking die.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave sat stock-still in his chair, hand still on the cheek where he’d been slapped. “You're lying. There's no way you knew me before. You're talking about Vietnam war, I've never—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus blinked. "Oh, you've been there, believe me. Here take this."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave heard the sound of something dingling before Klaus placed something in his hand. Feeling around, he knew immediately they were soldier dogtags and the inscriptions in it made him gasp:</span>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>David J Katz</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Wisconsin</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>AB — 23071940</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Jewish</span>
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <span>"They're all I have left of the you." Klaus sniffed. "And yet here we are."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How do you got this?It's impossible for this to be this accurate, I-I couldn't have lived in the 60's, I-I…"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"As Hamlet says '</span>
  <em>
    <span>there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy'</span>
  </em>
  <span> and I'm proof of that, Dave."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Who are you really, Klaus?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus bit his lip, knowing this moment would've come sooner or later, and yet he wasn't ready. Just like the first time he told Dave about his life, he could feel his heart hammering in his chest and he was sure Dave could hear it too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Klaus Hargreeves, mainly known as Number Four or The Seance. Member of the Umbrella Academy, when...when it was still a thing."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Umbrella Academy, that was a familiar name(a group of superheroes,yes he had a vague idea of it and he had heard some of the older chief nurses refer to Klaus as "that Umbrella kid" but he never understood why), one piece of the puzzle that was Klaus. But the Hargreeves name made his heart beat fast and it was like he saw his life pass right through his eyes; him officially meeting Klaus on the army bus, Klaus smiling at him with his shining green eyes and making him laugh with his crazy stories and jokes, the countless nights they spent together as guards of an army camp, them on a nightclub getting drinks and dancing and —</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Even if I believed in you, Klaus," Dave bent down. Felt around until his hand found the edge of the book he’d thrown off of his lap. "How is that even possible? I always felt like I knew you from somewhere but never could figure out what about you that was so familiar. So how?How can we know each other, how can you have this dogtags from what you claim is me of the past?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Time travel is real and a really complicated thing, Dave." Klaus closed his eyes and clenched his fists. "At first I thought we weren't supposed to meet, because I didn't belong in the 60's, and it was just a joke from the universe to send me there to fall in love and watch you die, then come back to where I belonged. But then, I get a mandatory job here in this hospital and there's a soldier called David Katz with the same age and same information of the one I feel in love. I don't know how, or why this is happening and I wish I could have a more concrete answer for you, but as I said, time travel is a real complicated thing, Davey, with lots of possibilities."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave blinked, feeling tears in his eyes, and by the heartbeat and breathing of Klaus, he was in the same state. He knew Klaus, from a life he lived somewhere in the past, and he loved him then, they had been together back then and they had –</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I'm not here out of pity, if that's what you're thinking.” Klaus took a deep breath before continuing. “It’s not… it’s not even guilt. Not really.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then what the fuck is it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At the beginning it was… I don’t know, a kind of sense of responsibility for you,” Klaus admitted. “I've lost you before so I felt.. I felt responsible. For you. It’s stupid, I know” he mumbled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But that was just at the beginning?” Dave ran a hand over the book like he was trying to find his place. “What—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Moment of truth. “I loved you. Still do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave’s chin tucked in and he seemed to blanch. “You—?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I tried not visiting after you were moved to long term care,” Klaus stuttered out. “I made excuses that I was busy so I didn’t come for nearly a week, I—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was six days,” Dave said quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted you to be able to live another life without me,” Klaus said. “I don’t know. It was stupid. But I missed you. I missed you, Dave, so I came to visit again and you were…” He ran a hand over his face. “I loved you. Before everything, I mean. I still love you. but - I don’t know. You’re my friend now, and I missed you, and when I came to visit you were so happy to see me and I was so happy to see you and I’d missed you so much—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you lying?” Dave interrupted suddenly. He inclined his head upward. “Your heart is beating really fast.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Klaus sighed. “No, I’m not lying. I would never lie to you. I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to wish you were dead because it nearly killed me seeing you on the ground like that when you were shot. And I worked so hard to try and save your life when I was given a second chance but I fucked up again. Now I got a third chance, and I'm so fucking scared of fucking this up one more time because we're… because I care about you, and I couldn’t even go a full week without visiting you. You think I’d be okay if you died again? Even if you don't believe my story, just… just don’t. Don’t ever fucking say that again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave clenched his hands on the arms of his chair, looking lost. “I—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should go,” Klaus said, turning toward the door. “I'll… I’ll come back again really soon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Klaus, please—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus shifted easily out of Dave's reach. “Bye, Dave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t stop outside the door because he knew Dave would be able to tell. He didn’t stop when he reached the reception desk because maybe Dave could hear that well, too. He didn’t stop outside the automatic hospital doors. He got to the parking lot. Took a cigarette box and lighter out of his pocket. Light up one with shaking hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thought about the look of confusion on Dave’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaned his forehead against the wall and cried.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. True Love Is Violent</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“This is really, really dumb,” Dave said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s your birthday,” came Klaus’s voice at his shoulder. “I’m taking you out for a drink.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to drink.” Dave growled. “Remember the last time I drank? I fell over.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay,” Klaus shot back. “I’ve been working out. I’ll carry you home if I have to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I can’t do barbecue, I can’t cut the meat or check it or even make my own—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll do it,” Klaus interrupted. “I'll do all of it. It’s your birthday, Dave. When was the last time you went out for barbecue?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been months ago, for the birthday of one of his sergeants, and he’d paid and he’d been in charge and everything had been great and he’d been surrounded by people and now four months later he didn’t have any of those people. He just had Klaus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t sure if he’d trade back, come to think of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s been a while,” Dave stammered, clutching his cane in his hand as Klaus slipped an arm through the crook of his elbow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Through his last months on the long term care ward, he and Klaus somehow managed to work out their differences — and by differences, it meant Klaus telling the whole truth of who he was and their story together(or how Dave chose to call "their past life together"), and maybe that was the most Klaus was open with anyone about his life. He told the bad and the good about his life, about the drugs, about his father and brothers,about his powers and the ghosts, the times he time traveled, anything for Dave to trust him that he was telling the truth — he even got Anna and other of his work colleagues to tell stories of the Umbrella Academy they'd remembered to Dave, all to prove that Klaus wasn't bullshitting him about being an ex time traveling superhero. In return, Dave asked him questions that only someone really close to him would know and Klaus got each one the correct answer, which became a game between them later on where they would throw a random question about themselves to the other to test how close they were.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Klaus was busy with his dutties and left Dave alone, Dave would often find himself thinking about them together. They had been lovers once, in another life, in another timeline, and he couldn't stop himself from thinking about that. If time travel and superheroes existed, who was him to question the existence of soulmates? Maybe Klaus was his, and something in the universe was fighting for them, wanting them to be together in a way or another. Maybe it was meant to be, as some things he felt when Klaus was around were too strange and strong to be coincidences. And he craved Klaus presence more and more each day, his laugh, his smile, his heartbeat. They made an agreement that for now they would stay friends, but something inside of Dave wanted more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he’d moved out of the long term care ward into his own apartment with his own stuff and his own key and his own brand new set of complex problems, Klaus was there with him. He’d never been good at cooking but he’d had to get a microwave with braille buttons. He’d had to get a braille label maker for all the food in the fridge, and once a week Klaus took him grocery shopping and spent an hour labeling everything carefully after they got back to his apartment. (“Next time,” Klaus had said at the end of his first visit, as he stepped over the threshold of Dave's brand new front door, “I’m going to bring you some light bulbs.”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d had to get a flip phone, with extra-large buttons. He’d amassed an entire wardrobe of identical clothing in what Klaus assured him was all black and gray (but maybe it was bright pink, who knew? Dave certainly didn’t) and he didn’t tell Klaus when the soles of his shoes started wearing through because feeling the pavement under his feet made him feel grounded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was independence, of a sort. It was independence plus Klaus - operating the label maker dutifully, checking the labels on all the boxes, replacing the light bulb in his bathroom. (He’d brought a step stool with him one day. “I'm quite tall but I can’t reach everything,” he’d said, shoving past Dave into the apartment. “And I don’t like peeing in the dark, gives me the creeps.”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know if I want to go to barbecue,” Dave said, pulling up short.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus swung on his arm, almost tipping him over. “It’s your birthday—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everyone’s going to stare at me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No one’s going to stare at you. And anyway—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—And anyway how can I tell? Is that what you were gonna say?” Dave coughed out a laugh. “Don’t patronize me, Klaus.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That wasn’t what I was going to say,” Klaus mumbled under his breath, and Dave flushed hot with shame. “I was going to say that I’d kick anybody’s ass if they stared at you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t we just…" Dave raked a hand through his hair, feeling obvious and exposed and lost in the sea of people, anchored loosely to the world only through Klaus - his cool hand and cigarette scent like a lifeline in the dizzying crush of the city. "Can't we just get something delivered?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You haven’t been out of your apartment in weeks, Dave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We went to the market four days ago!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You haven’t been out of your apartment for anything other than grocery shopping,” Klaus amended testily, “in weeks. I don’t want you to become a recluse. You need to get out. Meet people.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t need people,” Dave muttered under his breath. “I’ve got you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You need to meet new people.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What person would date a blind guy?” Dave gestured at his face. They were in the middle of the city somewhere - he liked walking places so that he knew how to get home (it wasn’t that he counted his steps, but almost), only Klaus had made him take the subway today and he was too agitated to pay attention to the announcement. Around here all the people sounded the same. “What person would date a guy who looks like me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would, I've did before.” Klaus scoffed, and then sucked in a quick panicked inhale.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a moment - just a second, not even half a second - where Dave felt almost superhuman. His attention focused in tight, a pinpoint centered on Klaus: his heartbeat jumped; he’d taken a quick step backward; his hand loosened on Dave’s elbow; his breath caught in his chest. Dave thought about every Daredevil comic he'd ever read as a kid, about every body language documentary he'd listened to in the last three months, about all the tiny little quirks and mannerisms Klaus had that he'd accidentally and purposefully memorized.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean if I you wanted to,” Klaus was stuttering out, tugging them forward to keep walking, “not like I, not—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re lying,” Dave said, letting himself be dragged along.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re lying,” Dave repeated, warmth spreading through him - but then he chickened out. “You wouldn’t really date me. I can tell from your heartbeat. You think I look gross, don’t you? I’m all scarred up—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You look fine, beautiful as I remember you being.” Klaus interrupted. “Don’t be stupid, Dave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t look fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You look fine—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and pulled Klaus back. He could hear Klaus’s heart thumping in his chest, heart rate just as high as before and rising still. Over the last few months he’d learned Klaus’s height, he’d learned where his mouth was (where his voice came from), so he reached up and very, very carefully tucked his fingers under Klaus’s chin, feeling his short goatee and tugging his face upward. “Would you really?” Dave said, voice low.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A quiet sound - the noise of Klaus licking his lips nervously. “Would I really what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Date me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus’s heart jumped, and he didn’t have to speak for Dave to know the answer. “For the hundred time, yes,” he breathed out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Dave leaned down, aiming for the hum of Klaus’s voice (so soft and so careful and so so so beautiful) so that their lips met.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a minute Klaus pulled away, breath rough in his throat. “People are staring,” he murmured with a smile, pressing his forehead into Dave's.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let ‘em stare,” Dave said, wrapping an arm around Klaus’s shoulders. “I’ll kick anybody’s ass for staring at you.”</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>"Hold still," Klaus said. "You've got something."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave froze dutifully, spoon poised in his right hand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been harder figuring out how much seasoning to mix in because he'd always gone by how red the rice had gotten - he'd tried counting out the length of the squeeze but it all depended on how thick the sauce and how full the bottle and how big the hole in the tip. Finally Klaus had just started taking photos of the food, after and before mixing it up, and then they figured out how much was the right amount through trial and error and a lot of really unfortunate amount of ingredients.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even in the din of the restaurant Dave could still hear Klaus's heart throbbing sweet and easy in his chest. It still ran a little quick at first whenever Klaus came to visit him - when they met at the park maybe, or when Klaus rang the doorbell of his apartment and his heart rate jumped and skittered - but it evened out as they spent more time in one another's company. Part of Dave hated that Klaus wasn't comfortable with him yet. (Another, quieter, darker part of him was selfishly pleased that Klaus's heart still literally raced at the thought of spending time with him even though they'd been dating for a month now.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The quiet, wet pop of Klaus's lips parting. The sound of the pad of Klaus's thumb pressing into his mouth. And then damp, as Klaus leaned toward him over the table and scrubbed something mysterious and unknowable from the corner of his mouth, sighing happily as he pulled away. "Beautiful."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're so weird," Dave mumbled, digging his spoon around the bowl. There had to be more rice in here somewhere, right…? Oh, thank god. "I'm not beautiful."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I said what I said." Klaus licked his lips - the sound of it like a fingertip running down Dave's spine, light and maddening - and picked up spoon again, the stainless steel clicking together. "There's one more piece. Do you want it?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave pulled his spoon out of his mouth. "Have you had enough?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm skinnier than you, big boy." Klaus chided, and Dave could almost hear him roll his eyes. (He couldn't really. Maybe someday, with a little practice, but as it was Klaus made the affectionate derision so obvious that even when Dave barely had a single clue what Klaus looked like now - beyond a distant memory of beautiful guy with green eyes, short dark hair and a rude smile - he could still tell when Klaus was rolling his eyes.) "I don't need to eat as much food as you do. Do you want it?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't want it, but—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Finish that bite and open your mouth."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was funny how obedient he'd gotten. Sometimes Dave wondered if he'd ever really had a choice - at a certain point he had to just let go and trust that what he was being told was true, was good, was accurate - wondered if he'd ever really had a chance at true independence. Maybe. Probably. They'd talked a lot about independence in the long term care ward, like it was some distant and shining but ultimately attainable prize, but now he had Klaus, and… and maybe it wasn't good, but he'd gotten very obedient.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave opened his mouth and Klaus popped the last piece of meat in his mouth. "What else did you want to do?" Dave asked after a minute, mouth still halfway full.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"This is good enough," Klaus said, setting his spoon down and resting his elbows on the table. "I like spending time with you outside. It's good to be out together. I like it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's your birthday." Dave swallowed, shaking his head. "You've gotta want to do something, it's your birthday, Klaus. Do you… do you want to go to a movie? We could—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I want to do something with you," Klaus interrupted quietly, slipping the first and middle fingers of his right hand into the hollow Dave had created in the palm of his left. His heart sped up a little. "I just want to spend my birthday with you. I want to be outside with you, and eat food with you, and talk to you about what you can hear." He laughed - and it was high and tight and a little embarrassed in a way that made Dave's stomach twist just slightly - and squeezed Dave's hand before slipping away again just as quickly as he'd slid in. His heart was jumping now - nerves? "Maybe that's silly."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Nah," Dave said, ducking his head in embarrassment even as he rolled his hand over so it rested palm up on the table top. It was an unspoken invitation for Klaus to reach out and slide their fingers together - and it worked this time just like it had worked every other time, even though now he could hear Klaus's breath catch in his throat. "It's not silly. But I'm not sure what—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He's blind," Klaus said suddenly - voice harsh, pointed toward the other side of the restaurant. The sound of conversation died as the warmth of Klaus's hand pulled out of Dave's loose grip, as the feet of Klaus's chair shrieked on the tile floor, as Klaus stood up and bumped into the table with his hip so that the dishes rattled dangerously. "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to stare? What the hell is your problem?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Klaus," Dave mumbled, reaching out to try to calm him down. "Klaus, it's okay—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's not okay," Klaus said, voice still pitched high, thickening now with frustration and helplessness and fury. He pushed Dave's hand back gently, steering it back down to rest on one of the metal water cups (even now still careful not to let Dave burn himself on one of the hot stone bowls). "Come on, you sons of bitches, you wanna come over here and make fun of him to my face? I'm gonna—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Klaus." Dave stood up, shoving his chair back carefully. He slowed his breathing, tried to focus on sounds outside of his own heart, outside of Klaus's heart, outside of the hum and whisper of the restaurant. Tried to find what he was looking for. "Klaus. They're not worth it. Come on. Let's just pay and go."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Dave—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Klaus." Dave adjusted his sunglasses, swallowing through a dry throat. Of course he didn't fucking like being made fun of but it wasn't going to ruin Klaus's birthday, god damn it. (There were three of them, at a table by the door. If Klaus pissed them off Dave couldn't protect him.) "Could you hand me my cane? We should go somewhere. Take a walk."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was quiet for a second, almost-quiet, the quiet of Klaus getting a hold of himself before the cool plastic of Dave's cane pressed into his palm. "Here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Thank you." He switched hands quickly, deftly, twisting his wrist to catch at Klaus's sleeve. "I'm okay. I'm serious. They're not worth it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm fine, Dave."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're not," Dave said, tapping the end of his cane on the floor, adjusting his grip carefully. "But you will be soon. Come on."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave waited patiently at Klaus's elbow as he paid. Followed him obediently out the door, into the chill of mid-October. Wandered after him in silence, listening to Klaus's breath trip and hiccup in his chest, listening to Klaus's heart racing still even after they turned the corner. For half a second Dave wondered if it was fear, if they'd been followed, but no footsteps rang out on the concrete behind them and they were alone in the middle of one of the back alleys - strange in and of itself, but a welcome relief.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only footsteps nearby that weren't his own belonged to Klaus, walking fast as though to escape - but Dave's legs were longer and he didn't need his cane when he had Klaus's heartbeat to follow, so he strode forward and reached out to twist curious fingers in the sleeve of Klaus's jacket. "Slow down, will you?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I just need to get away," Klaus mumbled, but he slowed to a stop. His voice was thick and his breath was stuttered and—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave reached up, carefully - brushing the backs of his fingers over Klaus's damp cheek. "Klaus, it's okay - I'm serious, I don't care if anybody stares at me. Hell, I - I probably would have stared at me too. I probably look weird, Klaus—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're fine," Klaus choked out, voice muffled a little as he brushed at his nose with his hand, "and - and I care, I care about people being dicks to you—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Klaus—" Dave reached out again before pulling back at the last second. He was never sure how much was okay, how much was too much, how much Klaus was only with him out of a sort of misplaced sense of responsibility. "Klaus. I promise I'm okay. I don't care if people stare at me - hell, it's not like I'd notice if they were—" Not always true, but Klaus didn't need to know that. "—and anyway even if they do it's really not a big deal—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I care," Klaus said again - and then seemed to tip forward, burying his face in Dave's shoulder, hands fisting in the lapels of Dave's jacket. "I care, Dave. I hate how people stare at you and I hate - I hate how they stare at us and I hate that even though being with you is… it's what I look forward to every day and I just want to be happy with you and go places and talk to you about stuff but people stare at you and they stare at me and they stare at us together and I hate it. Maybe someday I'll be okay with it, but I'm not yet. I'm not ready to be okay with it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave took a deep breath. Wrapped an arm around Klaus's shoulders carefully, gently, like he had on his birthday when Klaus had buried his face in Dave's chest for almost the exact same reason. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I don't… I don't want you to feel bad because of me. I really don't mind anymore if people stare at me, but… but I care if you care. I'm sorry."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's okay." Klaus's voice hummed in his chest. "I'm sorry. I overreacted."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No." Dave pressed a kiss to the top of Klaus's head. "Let's just go walk around the park You can tell me what it looks like in October and I'll tell you what I hear. All right?" He ran his fingers through Klaus's long hair. "All right?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"All right," Klaus sighed, standing upright. "Yeah. Let's do that."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave slipped his hand through Klaus's elbow. "Happy birthday, love."</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Dave was getting better and better at braille every day. Klaus had been trying to find him more books (his favorite books, the ones he talked about sometimes with a voice that sounded like half nostalgia and half self-loathing) but he'd bought out everything he could find in the bookstore between their apartments. The bookstore in the shopping district of their neighborhood had a few more braille books, and the huge bookstore in the center that he'd spent an entire day finding and exploring and getting back had even more still, but compared to Dave's demand there was so little.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The resources were… they were depressing, was what they were, and Dave was getting better and better at braille every day. Klaus's meager supply of books couldn't keep up with him, with how quickly he was progressing, with how quickly he read.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I could read to you," Klaus said one day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a lazy Saturday afternoon in the middle of November and they'd talked about going out today but instead a cold front had swept in and the city was locked in by heavy rain that was very nearly at monsoon levels - water pelting the windows of Dave's apartment with a steady syncopated beat, waxing and waning with the wind. It was November (even without heavy cloud cover it would be dark by now, early evening with a chill seeping in around the window panes) and they were curled up together under a pile of blankets, Klaus's toes tucked in slightly under Dave's thigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave's fingers stuttered over the line of braille he'd been reading over and over again. Klaus had been watching him - pretending to watch TV but actually just watching the way Dave ran his fingertips lightly over the page. He'd run his fingers over the same paragraph three times, biting his lip irritably each time he started over, and now when Klaus spoke his hand came to a stop and he wet his lips. "Read to me?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I know you've said you don't like audio books," Klaus said quickly, shifting his weight awkwardly at his end of the couch. The couch didn't match anything else in Dave's apartment, nothing did, but it was comfortable and warm and the fabric was smooth and pleasing to touch so Klaus couldn't bring himself to care. He'd spent countless afternoons and evenings on this couch, feet tangled with Dave's as they both sat in almost-silence and spent time together in their own ways. "But maybe if I read to you—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That might work," Dave interrupted, voice slow. He wet his lips again. Reached up to push his hair out of his eyes. "Yeah, I… I might like that. I don't know." He seemed to brighten, cocking his head to one side almost like he would if he were looking at Klaus. "Have you ever read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I have it in my old book collection."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I saw Blade Runner when it was on TV, but I've never read t."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave made a face. (At some point he'd completely lost his poker face, and Klaus could read his emotions just as well as Dave could tell when Klaus was worried just from the sound of his heart in his chest.) "Oh, god. No. Okay, you need to actually read it, they took so many liberties with the source material…" He paused for a second. "Honestly it wasn't bad of a movie, I kinda liked it even if they made Deckart motivations different from the book and added the open ending where you question if he was a replicant or not, and if replicants deserved to—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I could read it," Klaus interrupted. "Um. I could read it out loud. If you wanted."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a moment of quiet, broken only by the whisper of rain against the window panes. Dave bit his lip and gently closed the book in his lap, fingertips pressing into the leather. "You have a good voice," he said, his voice sounding a little like it was coming from a long way off. "But you - you don't have to. It's okay."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're bored."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Well, yeah, but—" Dave pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. "—but that's my problem, Klaus."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus rolled his eyes, already messing with the pile of books Dave's used to read when he still had his eyesight. "Phillip K Dick, right?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yeah." Dave placed his book carefully on the floor and adjusted the way he sat at the end of the sofa, swinging his feet up carefully onto the cushions, under the blanket, unintentionally dislodging Klaus's feet. "Yeah. I'm a big sci-fi nerd, judge me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus pulled up the first page, eyes flickering over the first few paragraphs. The light in the living room was dim and quiet, a glow of something almost like self-conscious guilt. The light in the living room was something Dave couldn't see and Klaus felt guilty enjoying it, felt guilty enjoying the way the gold of it played over Dave's face (the smooth planes, the almost-invisible scarring, the way he bit his lips self-consciously), but the guilt faded as he started to read.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sound of the rain on the window panes and the sound of the wind whistling gently under the door, the sound of the faucet dripping in the kitchen, the whirr and hum of the furnace kicking on. Dave's steady breath, slowing and evening out as Klaus read - stumbling over words and phrasing at first (the description of the futuristic setting was pretty well done and some words he was pretty sure didn't even exist before that book) before finding his way eventually.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words came easier as he continued through the first chapter (although what went into a mince-pie he had very little interest in learning) and even the characters names weren't so difficult when he found the cadence of it, like a rolling gait, like a slightly off-kilter wheel on a slightly off-kilter street. "Too bad. And Mozart, not long after writing The Magic Flute, had died--in his thirties--of kidney disease. And had been buried in an unmarked pauper's grave" Klaus read, "Thinking this, he wondered if Mozart had any intuition that the future did not exist, that he had already used up his little time. Maybe I have too, Rick thought as he watched the rehearsal move along. This rehearsal will end, the performance will end, the singers will die, eventually the last score of the music will be destroyed in one way or another; finally the name "Mozart" will vanish, the dust will have won. If not on this planet then another. We can evade it awhile. As the andys can evade me and exist a finite stretch longer. But I will get them or some other bounty hunter gets them. In a way, he realized, I'm part of the form-destroying process of entropy. "</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A movement caught his eye and he stuttered to a stop, glancing up. Dave's head had lolled over against the back of the couch, lips parted slightly, breath smooth and quiet and deep with sleep. The arm of his sunglasses was digging into his skin, and Klaus found himself swallowing nervously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn't have to be nervous, right? They'd been together… what, was it almost three months now? Almost three months. They'd known each other before that, too. Klaus had taken him grocery shopping and talked him through periods of depression and brought him cookies and they'd learned about each other for months before Dave had ever bent down and pressed a kiss to Klaus's mouth. Klaus didn't have to be nervous but he found himself so anyway, for no reason.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turned down the book and set it gently down onto the floor next to the couch, leaning forward, reaching out. The arm of Dave's sunglasses was digging into his skin, and Klaus couldn't imagine the headache Dave would wake up with if that didn't—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave's hand came up and gripped tight onto Klaus's wrist just as he started tugging gently on the frames, sucking in a sudden breath as he woke up. "Don't," he mumbled, rearing backward out of Klaus's reach. "Don't - who - how did you—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Dave," Klaus said, keeping his voice quiet even as he twisted his arm awkwardly in Dave's iron grip. "Dave, it's me. It's Klaus. You fell asleep, I was just going to take your sunglasses off so you would be more—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Don't," Dave said again, but he dropped Klaus's wrist shame-facedly and sat upright. He pushed the sunglasses back up his nose. "They're - it's fine. Leave them on."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus rolled his eyes. "Do you even wear them to sleep? Don't you ever take them off? Dave—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not when you're here," Dave interrupted, voice hushed and embarrassed. He seemed to shrink into himself. "I don't take them off when you're here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What?" Something constricted around Klaus's lungs. "Why not when I'm—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I can't yet," Dave said quietly, hands twisting in his lap. "I want to. But I can't yet. It's like what you said last month—" He waved a hand in wordless recollection. "—I'm just not…I'm just not ready yet."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do you think I'm going to think you're ugly? Dave..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's not that, it's…" Dave hesitated. "It's kind of that. I don't know. Just… I'm not ready." He raked a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's okay," Klaus said after a second, and it was mostly true. Dave was so strong all the time. He was so careful, he was so solid, he was so resilient. "I'm sorry."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's okay," Dave echoed back at him, but didn't tip his head back up again until Klaus finished reading the chapter.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Dead Man Walking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>In the last few weeks of his community service, sometimes Klaus didn't get a break for hours - there were too many things to do, too many people to check on, too many things to clean. Last year he'd been on the streets, spending his nights on drugged haze's and in the beds of strangers — then Reginald died, Five and time travel happened, apocalypse and all of that. He became a cult leader for three years back in the 60's, hated it, tried to escape it and rekindle his love and help his family but ended up losing his brother forever in the process, before coming back to his original timeline. So much had happened, so many things changed within him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He still went to AA meetings and had a few sessions with a therapist that he'd never once mentioned to Dave (because how could he complain? how could he complain to Dave of all people?) and when he completed the program his assessment was… not exactly good. The language had been couched in psychiatric jargon and a bunch of letter grades and scales of 1 to 10 that he didn't quite get, but the translation of the end result rang out clear in the back of his head: Klaus Hargreeves has been rattled, he's been shaken up, all his pieces were pulled apart and he tried to put them back together but he'll never be the same again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He walked through life feeling like he had something missing in his head - the part of him that was resilient, the part of him that could bounce back, the part that could look up at Dave and not feel that old stab of fear in his heart and the memory of bullets and blood and screaming. Even though Dave was like a walking talking joke-cracking glass-breaking awkwardly perceptive reminder of everything he'd lost and everything he'd had to see and everything, everything, everything, he was still who Klaus went to when he felt like all his pieces were shifting apart again. The glue he had to revisit time and time again to keep himself from flying apart into the void.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Doctors had called it PTSD. Klaus thought of it as being Humpty Dumpty (all the king's horses and all the king's men), and hated himself for it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>PTSD meant his body still worked, he was a hero, but there was something so broken inside of him that certain sounds made him want to cry but he forced himself to swallow it up, sometimes he felt his chest constrict in a blind panic that he had to lock himself in a random bathroom to wait for his panic attack to pass, his dreams were filled with dead people and flashbacks to every single bad things that happened in his life, lately being more focused on Dave's death and the ghosts of dead soldiers who would mock him and insult him with every ugly word they could come up with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It made him crave for drugs, and if he was honest he probably would've overdosed for the hundred time due to desperation if he wasn't caught by the police and sent to community service. He missed the numbness, the sweet drugged haze where everything seemed more happy and he wasn't so alone, he didn't have those ugly ghosts asking him for help whenever one spotted him. Back then it was so easy — easy to just have some cocaine, pop a few pills, drink until he forgot his own name and barely could control his body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now there was Dave. His sweet David Katz, who was the lifeline Klaus was holding onto to not break the three years of sobriety he had been keeping since Dallas. He had alcohol, yes, but nothing besides that; Dave knew about his past addiction and all the ugly things he did to feed it, and now Klaus wasn't ready to disappoint him by going to that path again. That's why, everyday he would get on the train and find a seat and cradle his head in his hands and travel the fifteen minutes it took to bring him back again to Dave's door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a Thursday in the beginning of December and the personnel forms were especially egregious - everyone and their cousin asking for time off or special circumstances or bringing up grievances or calling in built-up sick time - and he hadn't gotten a break until two in the afternoon, a real break, the kind of break where he stood up and stretched out every neglected muscle and pulled his cellphone out of his locket and wandered out into the cold to lit up a cigarette.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he typed in the password the notification blinked at him like an accusation: twelve missed calls. Two voicemails.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus stopped short in the the foyer of his building (snow beginning to build up on the parking lot outside) and scrolled through the missed calls with a growing sense of dread. They were all from Dave - the first had been that morning, not long after Klaus had picked up his uniform and tucked the phone into his locker on silent so it wouldn't distract him. (No one usually called him during the day anyway, so it almost didn't matter.) The most recent one had been only twenty minutes ago, and even as he flipped over to call Dave back the phone started blinking insistently, accusatorily in the palm of his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He fumbled with it to answer the call, nearly dropping the phone on the ground in his rush to bring it to his ear. "Dave," he breathed into the mic, already turning on his heel to go back to the locker room and grab his coat and leave early if he needed to, "Dave, oh my god, are you okay? I'm so sorry I've been so busy today I haven't even looked at my phone where are you—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Klaus," came Dave's voice out of the phone, "I'm okay."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus skidded to a stop on the linoleum and tried to breathe, hand pressed to his heart. "You're okay," he echoed. "Dave - why on earth do I have twelve missed calls from you if you're okay?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I couldn't remember when you usually went on break." Dave's voice sounded awkward, self conscious. "Sorry, I just… I needed to talk to you, so I called whenever I thought you might be on break. Have you listened to your voicemail yet?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No, I haven't listened to my voicemail yet," Klaus groaned into the phone, running a hand over his face. "I thought you were dying or something or, or stuck in a hole I don't know—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Stuck in a hole? Klaus…"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't know! Twelve missed calls, Dave! Why did you call me twelve times?" He hesitated. "Thirteen times, really."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"My mom called me this morning," Dave said. "I totally forgot about it, but there's this huge… thing…"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A huge thing?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A party," Dave gritted out, sounding like the very thought of it was like setting foot into a torture chamber. "A holiday party. It's every year - my dad's boss throws it and we've always all gone and this year especially she wants me to go because something about me being a hero or whatever—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You are a hero," Klaus interrupted quietly. "A lot more people would have died if you weren't there."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Well, whatever. Point is she called me and it's this Saturday and I totally forgot and I can't stand the thought of going to this damn thing if—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"If what?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"If you're not there," Dave mumbled. "I mean my parents are great," he amended quickly, "my mom especially has been amazing with this whole thing, b-but you're, I don't know, I know I can really depend on you and there are going to be so many people there and they're all going to be asking me questions and I can't do crowds easily anymore, and tight places—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Dave Katz" Klaus cut in. "Are you asking me to the ball?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence on the line. "What, like fuckin' Cinderella or something?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yeah, or something." Klaus laughed despite himself. He'd thought that it was something terrible. He'd had a flashback to Dave lying on the ground with blood pouring out of him and he'd panicked and now his heart was finally cooling and it was making him a little giddy. "This Saturday?" He bit his lip thoughtfully, staring distractedly out the window. "I don't know if I have anything to wear that would be—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We'll figure something out till then. My parents are sending a car on Saturday at four o'clock and so if you're here a little before—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do they know?" Klaus couldn't say it, not the whole thing. "I mean… that you're asking me to come?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Of course," Dave said after a second. "Yeah, yeah, I said that - I said I was going to ask you, it's fine."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn't that Dave's parents didn't like Klaus. They liked him fine. Dave's mother had said god knew how many times how grateful she was that Dave had someone like him to help him (he'd interrupted her politely to make sure she knew that he wasn't there as some kid of helper, he was there as Dave's friend) who knew what he was doing. Dave's father was a man of few words but none of the ones he'd directed toward Klaus had been negative.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But sometimes… sometimes when they were all together in the same space Klaus could feel them watching him. Dave would reach out for Klaus's elbow as they walked into a coffee shop and he could almost feel Dave's parents trading glances. Dave would say something about how Klaus read to him and Dave's mother would go quiet for a moment before saying something pleasant and noncommittal and very vaguely curious. (He reads to you, she'd said calmly, bringing her coffee cup to her mouth, every day? and her eyes had flickered to Klaus's face and he hadn't been able to meet her gaze. Dave had smiled brightly and said, yes - because he couldn't see the look on his mother's face.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's fine," Klaus echoed. "Okay. If you're sure. I don't want to impose."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's not imposing, Klaus. I'd really - it would be nice if you were there. Please."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Four o'clock, you said?" Klaus glanced up to the clock on the wall, more an unconscious habit than anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A little before. Just in case."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Okay," Klaus said - and found himself grinning despite himself. "Okay, a little before. Dave—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yeah?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Thanks. For inviting me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Nah. Thanks for coming."</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>At some point Klaus had set him up with one of those clocks that dinged on the hour (like a cuckoo clock, but infinitely less obnoxious) so at three in the afternoon on Saturday when the clock on his wall dinged three times (short and sweet), Dave dog-eared the page of the book he'd been reading. Set it down on the couch cushion beside him. Stood up and made his way into his bedroom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus had come over on Thursday, of course. (Dave wasn't sure why it had felt so urgent to call him about the holiday party when he knew full well he'd just come over in a few hours - there was a quiet voice in the back of Dave's head that whispered you wanted to hear his voice but he was pretty sure it was just that he had been anxious.) He'd come over on Friday as well, like he always did - to read to him a little and eat dinner with him and trade stories and frustrations and bad jokes of the kind that made Dave feel almost normal. He'd taken a few minutes to help Dave dig his old dress uniform out of the closet, hanging it up piece by piece on the back of his bedroom door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave hadn't tried putting on his dress uniform since… since before everything, really. He ran his hands over the thick fabric, the buttons that he knew were brass but now just felt cold and smooth under his fingertips, the smell of dust and humidity caught in the threads. It suddenly seemed complex and daunting even though he'd done it dozens of times, a hundred times, a thousand, and for half a second he wished he'd told Klaus to arrive at three to help him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For half a second he wished that he'd told Klaus to arrive at three, but he tamped it down and licked his lips and tried to remember that he could do this. He could do it, he could do it on his own, he didn't need help - and anyway was he really ready for Klaus to see him without clothes on? No. (Yes.) So he ran his hands over the thick fabric, over the buttons, smelled the dust in the threads. Steeled himself. Tried to remember what went on first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time he heard Klaus's key turning in the lock of his front door he'd managed to get on his socks (no problem), his undershirt (a similarly simple prospect), his slacks (slightly more complicated), and was in the midst of struggling with the button-up oxford Klaus had picked out for him. He'd been lulled into complacency by the simplicity of the socks and the undershirt and the slacks and had had to unbutton and rebutton the damn thing twice after realizing a minute too late that he'd started off with everything mismatched.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave struggled to undo the last button for the second time, adjusting the collar on his neck as the door closed and shoes thumped in the entryway. "Klaus?" (He didn't really have to call. He knew it was Klaus by the way he breathed, the way his heart jumped.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm a little early," came Klaus's voice filtering through the apartment, coming closer as he wandered through the living room and past the kitchen. "I figured you might - oh," he stuttered, coming up short.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave stood there stupidly, holding the plackets of his shirt delicately between his fingertips. "What? What's wrong? Am I - do I—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're not wearing your sunglasses," Klaus stammered, voice muffled like he was hiding his face. "I'm sorry, I know you aren't ready, I only saw you for a second and I'm not looking—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave's hand went to his face, even though he already knew Klaus was telling the truth. Fuck, he'd - he'd taken them off to change his shirt, he'd set them down on his nightstand where he always put them so he'd remember where to find them, and then he'd been so focused on getting into the damn dress uniform like he used to that he'd just fuckin' forgot to put them back on and now here he was, bare faced and probably horrible to look at, and Klaus was early because he was always a little bit early, and he wasn't wearing his sunglasses. Fuck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Sorry," Dave choked out, stumbling over until his shins hit his mattress and feeling around on the surface of the nightstand for his sunglasses. "Sorry, I know - I know that it's not—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You look fine," Klaus said quickly, voice still muffled behind his hands. "I only saw you for a second but you look fine, it's okay. I just… I know you aren't ready to not wear them, so I'm not looking. That's all."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave's hand fell on the wire frames. "I look fine?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You look fine to me." Klaus said again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn't like doing it. He'd figured out a while ago that it made Klaus nervous, knowing that Dave was listening to his heart and his breath and paying attention to all his little tells that told the whole story. He didn't like making Klaus nervous, but he couldn't help himself so god help him, he stood there next to his bed with his sunglasses in his hands and his shirt still unbuttoned and Klaus in the doorway with his hands over his face and Dave listened to Klaus's heart when he said you look fine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus was telling the truth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was scared - but the feel of it, the smell of the fear, it wasn't sharp and hot like the sting someone shocked and horrified. It was the low warm throb of someone worried. It was worry, not fright. Klaus was scared, but he… he was scared for Dave, not of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus was telling the truth (Dave could feel the truth pouring off of him like vapor off a block of dry ice) but Dave still had to check. Still had to be sure. Still had to act like he didn't already know. "Do you mean that?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Quiet for a second. "Of course," came Klaus's voice, hushed and nervous. "You look fine."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do I look normal?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No." That was true. "Sorry." That was true too. "But you don't look bad. You look fine, Dave. I promise. Listen if you need to. I promise."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm going to wear them to the party," Dave said suddenly, steeling himself. "I'm… I'm going to wear them to the party. But—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"But what?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Could you help me with these damn buttons?" Dave set the sunglasses back down on his nightstand and turned around, spreading his arms out wide in a gesture of bashful helplessness. "They're really small and slippery and I swear to god I got them mismatched and crooked like a million times before you showed up."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus's heart beat jumped again. He sucked in a breath. There was the movement of fabric as he lowered his hands from his face - then the quiet padding of his feet as he stepped across the bedroom to Dave's side. "Y-yeah," he stuttered out, and the fabric of Dave's shirt moved under his attention. "Yeah, no problem. I can do that."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were a few moments of charged silence (humming and electric) as Klaus buttoned up Dave's oxford. As he wordlessly tugged at Dave's right cuff and then his left, fastening the cuff links carefully with his breath tight in his throat. He was smoothing the crisply starched fabric of Dave's collar up to loop a tie around his neck when Dave couldn't hold it in anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do I really?" Dave said, voice quiet. "My old friends… officers from the base… they didn't - they didn't like the way I looked. Without sunglasses. It was easier if I just—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then the air moved, and Klaus was right there - standing to press his lips chastely to the corner of Dave's mouth. "They're assholes," Klaus breathed against Dave's skin. "You look fine. Your eyes… they don't look the same as they used to. You look different, a little. But you look fine." Another quick kiss, nervous and uncertain, before Klaus stepped away again to grab the tie from where it was hanging on the doorknob. "You look beautiful as you always did."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave listened, feeling his cheeks pink with heat as Klaus slipped the tie over his neck. Dave listened, as Klaus tightened the knot over his throat. Dave listened, as Klaus smoothed down the points of his collar and adjusted the way the tie sat over his chest. Dave listened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus was telling the truth. He thought Dave looked beautiful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave found Klaus's mouth. Kissed him again - just as nervous, just as uncertain. "Thanks," he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Don't mention it,love." Klaus said, breathless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn't even that Dave's eyes looked that different, per se. The cornea seemed cloudier, the lens perhaps a little bit milkier. The scars had faded and gone silver and the doctors had done a good job. They'd done a good job, and if Klaus hadn't known what Lieutenant David J Katz had looked like before the day of the bomb (the day everything had changed) he might not notice anything different about him at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only real difference was the… the lack of focus, maybe. The way Dave's eyes hung mostly closed, eyelashes threading together, the way he didn't seem to be looking at anything at all (because he wasn't). Back when Dave had been Lieutenant Katz he'd been sharp-eyed and observant and apparently omniscient, all-seeing. Sometimes he seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, other times he focused in so tight that the room could catch on fire around him and he'd hardly think to look up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now there was none of that focus, none of the sharp-eyed observance that Klaus had always associated with him. His eyes were hooded and blurry, his corneas milky, the spiderweb of scars around his eyes telling a story that Klaus relived every night in his sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus helped him with his tie. With his jacket. Chided him gently for not pinning his national security medal to his left breast yet, and busied himself with attaching it solidly to the fabric.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The doorbell rang when the car arrived, and Dave slipped his sunglasses on before going to the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It'll be okay," Klaus said, brushing nonexistent lint from Dave's lapel as they paused in the entryway to pull their shoes on. "You'll do great. You've done this every year, right?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not like this," Dave replied quietly, slipping into his shoes and answering the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At half past four and the was already darkening, the solstice approaching fast and the sky heavy with snow-laden clouds. There was already snow along the curbs (left over from the night before and the night before that), mixed in with the rain on the windshield, and halfway there the driver turned on the headlights and Dave laid his hand silently on the seat between them - palm up, fingers uncurled loosely in that silent invitation that they both understood without ever having spoken.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus glanced up into the front seat, but the driver wasn't paying attention to them so he slipped his hand over Dave's palm, lacing their fingers together. Dave tightened his grip for just a second - like he was reassuring himself that they were there, that Klaus was there, that they were there together - and traced the fingertips of his free hand over the cold glass of the window.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It'll be okay," Klaus murmured under his breath, squeezing Dave's hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A funny smile played briefly over Dave's features as he ducked his head. "Maybe. Since you're here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The party was at the top floor of one of the massive hotels in the center, everything lit up bright and ridiculous and shining, people yelling in the street, car horns sounding, the concierge hollering at the bellboys. The driver opened the door for Dave and Klaus was right there - elbow out like a gentleman for Dave to slip his hand around Klaus's arm. (The driver didn't even seem to blink at how close they were, how comfortable, but Klaus worried stilll.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It'll be okay," Klaus said, once they were alone in the elevator.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave's grip tightened almost imperceptibly on the handle of his cane. "You keep saying that," he said mildly, the elevator dinging rhythmically as they passed each floor. "But your heart rate is starting to pick up. Are you saying it to me, or to yourself?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus nudged him gently with an elbow. "Does it matter? Don't be rude. And—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And what?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And it'll be okay," Klaus said, grinning as the elevator doors sighed open. He curled a hand around Dave's wrist and tugged him gently. "Come on. Let's get this over with."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The party was a tornado, a whirlwind, a hurricane of people and food and smells and sounds, talking and music and laughter. It only took fifteen minutes for Klaus to stop having fun and start feeling dizzy in the crush of everything, clinging tight to Dave's sleeve between thumb and forefinger. (No one was staring, he insisted to himself. Dave was blind, Klaus was his helper, everyone understood, no one was staring.) Dave… Dave had been worried. He'd been nervous, anxious, he'd worked himself up, but here and now in the spin of people and talking and laughter and heat and confusion he almost seemed to come alive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They found his parents, who introduced them to their friends, who introduced them to their friends who introduced them to their friends - and everyone needed to hear the story of why Dave had that cane, those sunglasses, the beautiful green eyed attendant hovering nervously at his elbow. ("He's so cute," an older woman cooed at Klaus at one point. Like he was some kind of… some kind of dog. He'd bristled slightly until Dave's hand found the small of his back, settling him with a touch.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus could only stand there listening to the story so many times, no matter how carefully Dave worded it, no matter how lightly Dave spoke about it, no matter how many self-deprecating jokes (carefully designed to pull the mood back up) slipped from Dave's lips. It had been months and he'd been working on his PTSD still and hearing Dave say the word bomb over and over and over and over and over—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Did you want to go get something to eat?" came Dave's voice in his ear, breath puffing lightly over the hairs at his temples.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus hadn't realized that he'd closed his eyes until he opened them to find Dave had carefully steered him against one of the walls of the reception hall. They were in a brief pocket of inactivity, the people swirling around the middle of the floor like a rhythmic tide seiching back and forth across the room, and Dave was leaning in close to him - murmuring in his ear. "What?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You… seem like you need something to eat," Dave said carefully, pulling back a little. His face betrayed him, brows knotted together in worry, mouth twisting with concern. "I can wait here. You can go get something to eat. It's all right."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was giving him an out. Dave was giving him an out, and if Klaus thought he'd loved Dave before it was nothing compared to that moment. He took a staggering step forward before pausing briefly. "Do you want anything?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Just bring back twice of whatever you get for yourself." Dave shrugged, wrapping both hands around the handle of his cane. "I'll be here. Where would I go, right?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Right," Klaus stuttered, backing away into the crowd.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He'd always liked parties. He'd always had fun at things like this, mingling and talking to people and eavesdropping and dancing and eating way more rich food and drinking (regretting it about four hours later in the bathroom every single time, like clockwork) but something about being here with Dave, something about having to relive that nightmare day for dozens of retellings, something about the way he kept feeling like someone was watching him behind his back (judging the way he kept his fingers twisted protectively in the fabric of Dave's sleeve) - it was different. It was difficult. He found himself having a hard time breathing. He found his vision tunneling. He found himself remembering the smell of smoke and ash and burning flesh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His phone buzzed in his pocket and he slipped it out briefly, one hand pre-occupied with a small plate of hors d'oeuvres. A glance upward confirmed that Dave was still next to the wall where Klaus had left him and he allowed himself a sigh of relief before typing a quick reply and sliding the phone back into his pocket as he left the buffet line and made his way back to Dave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time Klaus was five meters away Dave had been cornered again by another small group of passersby, oohing and aahing over his scars and his cane and his sunglasses and the medal on his breast. Klaus couldn't quite hear Dave clearly from here - he was facing the opposite direction and the noise of the room was beyond oppressive - but he could tell from the way he was moving his hands, from the expressions of horror on the faces of his audience, from the entire tableau that they'd asked him to tell the story again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He slowed despite himself, hanging back until he knew the story was over (signaled by a quick shrug of Dave's shoulders, as if to say que sera sera) but when he stepped in a little closer he could hear their voices more clearly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"But why didn't you bring a girlfriend to the party?" asked one of the men listening nearby. "Why bring this…friend of yours?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"His name is Klaus Hargreeves,," Dave said, voice ringing out clear. "He's my boyfriend, not a helper. I'm only still around because of him."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus knew that the words should leave a curl of warmth in his chest. He should feel good hearing it. He should feel good. He was supposed to be happy to finally be able to have a normal life with the love of his life - but instead he just felt a chill.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Why did you bring him?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He's my boyfriend. The reason I'm still around</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus didn't want gratitude. He didn't. He didn't care, he didn't want it, he didn't deserve it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He just wanted Dave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus was quiet. In the party Dave could hear his breath skittering and jumping, could hear his heart race and stutter, but he barely spoke. For three hours he barely spoke, and listening for him in the din and clash of the party was exhausting but Dave couldn't make himself stop. He didn't want to stop listening for Klaus, his singular heartbeat, his singular breath, the way his voice sounded when he was happy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm tired," he said, leaning down into Klaus's ear - and heard Klaus breathe an almost silent sigh of relief.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Okay," was the response. A cool, small hand curling around his wrist. "Let's go."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus was quiet in the elevator too. He was quiet in the lobby as they waited for the driver to bring the car around. He was quiet in the back seat on the ride home, breath even but heartbeat quick, and when Dave laid his hand on the seat between them (palm up, fingers uncurled slightly in a silent invitation) he didn't seem to notice. Looking out the window, maybe. Tired, maybe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave wondered if he'd done something, said something wrong, but Klaus's heart was still throbbing in a way that sounded almost like fear and the driver was right there and Dave wasn't sure how to ask. Not here. Not now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klaus didn't say anything until they were on Dave's front step, Dave struggling with the lock like he always did. (It had been months and he still wasn't used to it. He only had two keys but it seemed like he always tried the wrong one first.) He was quiet for a second, then sucked in a quick breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You don't owe me anything," Klaus said. "I just want you to know that."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave's hand stilled on the door knob. "Okay?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Just… you don't, that's all." Klaus licked his lips - the sound of it like a fingertip running down Dave's spine, light and maddening - and stepped past Dave to push the door open. "Not now. Not ever."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door opened under Klaus's hand, and something was different inside the apartment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first Dave couldn't tell what it was - it was just different somehow. There was a slightly sharp smell in the air, almost like dust and lemon. The way the air moved seemed different, like something new was disrupting the flow. When he stepped over the threshold and the soles of his shoes clicked on the tile the echo was wrong (new, it was new - not wrong, just new) and he couldn't figure out what it was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are we in the right apartment?" he said, slipping his shoes off and stepping up onto the hardwood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You don't owe me anything," Klaus repeated quietly behind him, voice quiet in the darkness as he slid his stocking feet out of his shoes. "Not for anything. It's not a big deal."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Something sounds different," Dave said, ignoring Klaus for a minute. There was a strangle vibration in the air - every footstep seemed to release a tiny, almost imperceptible ringing. Different notes, different creaks, the click and settle of something new and strange in the apartment that he'd learned to navigate in the impenetrable dark that his life had become. "There's… Klaus, there's something new. In the apartment. Did you…?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You've been bored," Klaus mumbled awkwardly, coming up behind him and guiding him gently over the floor of the living room. Nudging him to the side, forward, back over… pulled him back to sit down on a bench that he knew (he knew) hadn't been there before. "I've been trying to find more books but there isn't a lot out there in braille, and I know that you don't like being read to all the time—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You have a good voice," Dave protested weakly, trying like hell to place the sound, the vibration, the way the air moved, the smell of dust and lemon. "I don't mind, it's okay. Klaus, what—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"—and my dad," Klaus pressed on, leaning over Dave's shoulder - hands curling around wrists, lifting his hands, settling his fingers on something cool and hard and smooth but somehow flexible, moving under the weight of his hands - leaning over Dave's shoulder and lowering his voice, heart thumping, "my dad is dead so I thought why not since it will only keep gathering dust in the mansion as none of us except Vanya has actual musical talent so maybe—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A piano," Dave said, pressing down experimentally. The vibration he'd been hearing, the light ringing - it had been the strings, responding to the floorboards and the air movement and the cooling temperatures from opening the door into winter. "Holy shit, Klaus - you got me a piano."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's not a big deal," Klaus repeated. "We would've just had to, to throw it away or something, I don't know, so I called my brothers - you've met them, Diego and Luther - and gave them a key and they brought it over today while we were at the party."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave ran his hands over the keys, keeping his touch light and careful just in case he was dreaming. Just in case he was going to wake up any minute. "Holy shit. Klaus. You got me a piano. A piano, Klaus."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's not—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dave turned, hand coming up to reach for Klaus's wrists. "Klaus—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You've been bored," Klaus repeated, pulling awkwardly out of Dave's reach. "Really, it isn't a big deal. You don't owe me anything."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was never sure how much was okay, how much was too much. How much he was allowed. How much Klaus was only with him out of a sort of misplaced sense of responsibility. He was never sure about anything (floating lost and alone in the dark with only the beacon of Klaus's heartbeat to guide him to shore) but Klaus had gotten him a piano and so maybe it was just in this moment but he was sure. He was sure, so he stood up. Reached out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I know," Dave breathed, catching hold of Klaus's shoulders and pulling on him gently gently gently (so that Klaus could pull away if he wanted to) to bring him in just a little bit closer. "I know. But thank you. This… this means a lot."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's nothing," Klaus said, his voice tight. "You don't owe me anything."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It means a lot," Dave repeated, and leaned down to find Klaus's lips in the dark - Klaus's heartbeat like a beacon, guiding him to shore.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. In Your Arms Tonight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>"Where are we going?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's a surprise," Klaus said calmly, like he hadn't already said it a dozen times. Dave kept asking, whining, wheedling, but still every time Klaus was going to give the same answer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't like surprises," Dave mumbled irritably under his breath, swiping his transit card over the sensor and stepping through the turnstile into the subway station. "I'm blind. Everything is already surprising."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's a good surprise."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You thought snow was a good surprise."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus almost opened his mouth to argue that snow was pretty before he remembered himself and thought over his words more carefully. "Nostalgia," he replied simply. "And besides, it's not snowing today. It's too warm to snow."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was the middle of January and the abominable cold that had held the city in a frost-tipped grip had let up slightly - Dave had slipped a few times on the ice and Klaus had nearly thrown his back out catching him - the snow all melted and the clouds heavy with rain rather than snow. "Great." Dave clung to the railing on the stairs as he navigated the concrete steps, the expression on his face dark and irritable. "So we'll just get caught out in the rain instead. What a great surprise."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave had been playing the piano every single day since Klaus had had it delivered to the apartment. He'd learned a little, he'd explained at one point, when he was a kid - spent a few years learning piano, spent a few years learning violin - but had mostly abandoned it in his mid-teens in order to focus on martial arts and joining the family business of lifelong military service.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But now he was playing every day - starting with scales and simple exercises to get used to the keyboard, moving up to one-handed melodies for a while, incorporating his left hand after a few weeks of pecking out uncomplicated melodies - and now he was learning songs by ear, listening to songs with one earbud in and playing the song over and over and over until he got it. Maybe it was that he'd always been a little bit of a musical genius. Maybe it was that he had the time now. Maybe it was that he was just bored, bored, bored and this was the closest thing he had to a video game.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Either way, he was incredible - and starting to want to branch out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So today (a damp day in the middle of January with heavy clouds overhead, the kind of clouds that started out abysmal and threatened to become simply abyssal instead) Klaus had bundled Dave up in a sweatshirt and a scarf, stuck his cane in his hand, shoved him out the door and down the street and down the stairs of the nearest train station and wandered through the labyrinthine depths until he found the platform that would take them to his surprise.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Are we going to get lunch?" Dave said, his voice sounding a little bit bright, a little bit brittle. "It's not your birthday… it's not mine… is today special? Did I just forget?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Not particularly special," Klaus said carefully, watching the clock overhead. "Not special yet, anyway."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I really hate it when you're vague."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah yeah."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the train Klaus could feel people watching them, could feel eyes searing over Dave's face (his sunglasses, his scars, the cane in his hand), could hear murmurs behind people's hands as he guided Dave over to a seat and stood in the aisle in front of him, clinging to the bar overhead and standing somewhat territorially between Dave's knees. Klaus found himself… not caring. Let them look. He was here, Dave was here, they were having a good day - let them look and think whatever shit they wanted.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You seem happy," Dave said, a bit after the train had started to hiss along the track. He reached up and brushed his fingertips over the dense weave on Klaus's black pants. "You're usually so tense when we go out, but you seem happy today."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A pool of warmth flooded slowly through the hollow of Klaus's chest. "If you're trying to trick me into telling you where we're going, it won't work."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Worth a shot, though."</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>"You've been listening to a lot of piano music," Klaus said. "Are there any other instruments you've been interested in?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They'd gotten off the subway somewhere in the center, gone through the turnstile, fought the crowds, climbed the steps into January and now Klaus was leading him down the sidewalk like he always did - one elbow out for Dave to slip his hand, hands in his pockets. The air bit against Dave's cheeks and he found himself wishing he'd worn gloves; with one hand looped around Klaus's arm his cane was unnecessary to find his way so he held it carefully in an increasingly chilly grip.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He'd been getting better at tuning out ambient noise over the past few weeks, the past month. The din and clash of the city on a Saturday would have been overwhelming three months ago but now he found he was able to focus his attention in (like a microscope, like a magnifying glass) so that all he was really paying attention to was Klaus - his breath, his heart, his footsteps. The way he wet his lips against the cold. The little sounds of surprise and concern and thought that he hummed to himself without thinking about it, signaling that he was hungry or thinking about what to do later or maybe that he'd seen something mildly alarming across the street.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Cello," Dave said after a second of thought, tripping a little over a crack in the sidewalk. "Debussy, sonata for cello and piano in D minor. It's…I'm not good enough yet," he admitted stupidly, tightening his grip on the sleeve of Klaus's sweater, "but I - I like it. You should hear it, the vibrato when the cello comes in—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somewhere in traffic a horn sounded. "That's not at you," Klaus said mildly as Dave jumped. There was irritable shouting from the other side of the street. "Don't worry about it. What were you saying about the vibrato?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave shook his head. "I think I'd have to play it for you. It just… it builds up slow, starts somewhere you can barely hear it and then, I don't know. It's good. It's right. I like it."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You mentioned that you used to play the violin."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Eh. Never really liked the violin. I wanted to play the cello but my hands were too small."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a slight choking noise to his right as Klaus's breath hiccuped in his chest. "You? Your hands were too small?! Dave, your hands are like… just…" Klaus stuttered a little, and his heart rate picked up for a second. "I guess I mean your fingers are really, really long."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I was five!." Dave grumbled irritably, trying not to feel too pleased at the embarrassment (and something that sounded almost like… lust? he was probably just hearing things, projecting maybe) in Klaus's voice. "Give me a break. Five year olds have small hands."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh my god," Klaus breathed. "That's adorable. I bet you were adorable, Dave."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Pretty damn."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Turn left here," Klaus said, nudging into his side. "There are some steps up."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave flipped the cane around in his left hand, the leather loop on his wrist keeping it from falling out of reach, and steadied it to swing in front of him. They'd come up with a system - deceptively simple - they used when they went out together. When they were someplace quiet and empty Dave didn't have to hold onto Klaus's arm, he could just follow the sound of Klaus's heartbeat like a lighthouse in the dark, but mostly (even when they were someplace quiet and empty) he still held tight to Klaus's sleeve until Klaus piped up with a warning. Stairs, maybe. A gap in the sidewalk. An upcoming curb.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A door swung open and warmth spilled over his face, the sound of a bell twinkled overhead like stars, Klaus scuffed his feet on carpet and pulled Dave in over the threshold to let the door swing closed. "Hello?" Klaus called out, and his voice was…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>…wherever they were, every sound was muffled slightly like the walls had been padded with foam. Klaus's voice, even pitched high to carry across a wide space, didn't seem to echo at all. The only respond was a slight ringing, a vibration in the air like the sound he'd heard the first time he'd opened his apartment to find the piano in his living room - but the ringing was coming from everywhere at once, from a million sources, impossibly low and impossibly high and every note and tone in between.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Where are we?" Dave whispered to Klaus, stepping in close.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was the sound of a door opening and closing. "Klaus!" came a voice Dave had never heard before - a young lady, warm and distractible and cheerful. "Is this Dave?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hey Vanny." Klaus said, and his voice was cheerful, Dave could feel him move to perhaps hug the lady. "This is Dave. Dave, this is my dear sister Vanya, the violinist I told you about. If there's someone who knows more about musical instruments than her I don't know, so I invited her to help us here."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Nice to finally meet you, Dave." Vanya's voice held a smile in it as she greeted him. "Gotta say I've never seen Klaus so happy and stable as these past few months he spent with you."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave felt his cheeks heating up and his heart jump in his chest at Vanya's compliment. "T-thank you, Vanya. Klaus has been making me very happy as well, despite everything."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh you two, stop flattering me." Klaus laughed dramatically. "I'm getting shy here, and it isn't even supposed to be my night."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You two make a cute couple, what can I say?" Vanya shrugged. "Okay, what are you guys looking for?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He's interested in…" Klaus trailed off, heart jumping for a second. "In checking out a cello."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Ok, let's go then." said Vanya, and Dave knew where they were.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before the bombing he'd been at that place, god - a hundred times, a thousand times, a million - and when he was a kid his parents had brought him here. There was a music shop on one of the back streets with acoustic foam on the walls and all manner of musical instruments in racks and on hooks and in glass display cases and even hanging from the ceiling, a back room filled with pianos and practice rooms. And older man behind the counter, voice warm and distractible and kind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He couldn't speak. He couldn't resist. Klaus and Vanya guided him through the aisles (Dave wondered idly if the carpet was still blue like it had been when he'd come here for violin lessons at the age of five) and into a chair and took his cane and unwrapped his scarf from his throat and after a minute there was the sound of something wooden. Something hollow. Something warm and empty yet somehow full, and then Vanya said, "hold out your hand," and the cello was right there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You guys didn't have to do this" Dave said, sitting there awkwardly with the neck of the cello held loosely in his left hand, not quite willing to accept the reality of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I know," Klaus said. His heart beat was like a lighthouse in the dark, and when he laughed it was like lightning - illuminating everything in a brilliant quarter-second flash of heat. "It's fun, though."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," Dave breathed. He let the cello settle in between his legs. Felt the lightness of it, the sheen of the lacquer, the smell of the wood. It rang low and heady in his ears and when he ran his hands over the strings the tiny metal ridges hummed over the whorls of his fingerprints. "Yeah," he said again, voice thick in his throat. "Yeah, it's fun."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave lost track of time. He lost track of Klaus and Vanya. He lost track of everything for a little while, with the cello between his legs in his hands in his ears.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's getting late," came Vanya's voice in his ear, quiet and calm and sounding a little tired. "And it looks like it's going to start raining. We should probably—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," Dave breathed again, holding the cello out, not quite wanting to let it go. "Yeah, yeah, we should - can we come back? Again? Later? Some other time?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Can we…?" Klaus sounded surprised for a second. "Of course we can come back. Whenever you want. Vanya knows the owner, right Vanny?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah, you guys can come whenever you want. Just tell me first so I can tell you guys are coming Mr.Schneider."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Whenever I want," Dave echoed. If he thought he'd loved Klaus before it was nothing compared to that moment.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>"Sorry," Klaus groaned, voice echoing in the entryway of Dave's apartment as he struggled out of his soaked-through sneakers. The red dye in the canvas had stained the white socks underneath and he felt chilled to the bone. "The weather report said there was a chance of rain, but I didn't realize that meant a chance of being dumped on like that."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think I can find it in my heart to forgive you," Dave's voice came floating back from deeper in the apartment. "You should put on some of my pajamas and hang up your clothes. No use trying to get home with the rain this bad."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," Klaus said, staring down at his black sneakers next to Dave's bigger black pull-ons. He'd never spent the night at Dave's apartment before. They'd always ended their evenings together with a well, this is been nice and a I'll call you when I get home and a quick, chaste kiss in the entryway, but now… now it was nearly ten at night in the middle of January and the storm was raging outside the door and his clothes were soaked through and Dave had said no use trying to get home.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'll hang up your clothes too," Klaus called, stepping into the apartment and flipping on the small floor lamp next to the door. "Just go get changed, and—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Dave had taken off his sunglasses (leaving them on the shelf by the front door), and now he was standing in the middle of the living room in front of the piano and pulling his soaked-through black shirt over his head - cotton fabric peeling off of his damp skin and leaving drops of condensation slick and trailing down his chest, his abdomen, his arms.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh, fuck." Klaus said, voice tight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave paused, shirt balled up in his hands - and cocked his head to one side. "Are you okay?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm - I'm fine," Klaus stuttered, wishing for neither the first nor the last time that he'd never ever suggested Dave learn heartbeats. He could hear his own whispering in his ears with a growing intensity and he knew (he knew) that Dave had to hear it too. "I'm okay. Just - the steps up to the apartment, running to get out of the rain—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Your heart," Dave interrupted, stepping toward him. "It's going really fast. Are you sure you're okay?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You're really beautiful," Klaus managed - and bit his tongue. "I mean - I mean I haven't, um, I haven't seen you without… without a shirt on before in ages. And you're… you look good," he finished stupidly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Nah," Dave said quietly, and - god, was he blushing again? "Nah, I'm - I'm not, it's not—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You're really beautiful," Klaus insisted, taking a step forward despite himself. Water was running down his back under his shirt but he couldn't think about it. "You're really…" He reached out like a man possessed, trailing light fingertips over Dave's chest. "You look good."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But then he realized what he was doing— "Sorry." —and jerked back - but Dave reached out and caught him, that thing he did where he very literally found him blindly in the dark just from timing and the movement in the air and the way Klaus's heart jumped as he pulled back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's okay," Dave said - and his voice was tight, worried, heavy with something that Klaus couldn't quite pinpoint. "It's okay, you can—" He bit his lip and stepped in, tugging on Klaus's hand to keep him pulled in close. "It's okay."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Are you just with me because I knew you in your past life?" Klaus stammered out, hand clenching in Dave's grip. The question had been hanging on the tip of his tongue since that damnable Christmas party and here, now, he couldn't keep it in anymore. "I know - I know that you said no, but we've been together for months and I don't want to press anything but we've only kissed and you really seem to care about me but you haven't… we haven't—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Do you want me to?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave's voice was pitched low and quiet and even, almost uncertain but mostly just unreadable. His eyes were almost closed like they were all the time, eyelashes threading together. His lips were parted. With the rain on his skin and the yellow light from the storm coming in through the living room window Klaus could see the telltale streaks and trails of the scarring left on his face even though he was in shadow. Klaus could see each muscle standing out in stark relief. Klaus could almost see it when Dave's breath hitched in his throat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Only if you want to," Klaus said, tongue thick in his mouth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then Dave was pulling on him, tugging on his wrist to drag him in a bit, curving down to press their lips chastely together like every other time they'd kissed. Even a kiss like this was still enough to twist around Klaus's lungs and blow the breath right out of him, but every kiss had been this innocent and this chaste and this uncertain and now Dave was in front of him with his shirt off and - and no matter what, Klaus couldn't bring himself to press. Dave had to move. Dave had to decide for himself. Dave had to make the choice, of his own volition.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He'd started wondering if Dave even knew there was a choice, but that fear was wiped clean out of his head the second the kiss changed - the kiss changed, Dave's lips parting hesitantly, tongue flickering out to lick against the seam of Klaus's mouth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn't up to him, he couldn't stop himself even if he wanted to, so he sighed desperately and opened his mouth and let Dave in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a moment of… not confusion, not chaos, but a feeling of instability. There was a precipice somewhere in their heads and together they stood at the edge, hands clasped tightly together, each waiting for the other to take the first step into the unknown. They'd stood at the edge for months now, wobbling and unsure with every action and every moment of quiet sweetness (Klaus had felt Dave nearly lose his balance when he'd come home to find Klaus had gotten the piano delivered; Klaus had nearly lost balance himself the moment he'd walked into Dave's apartment to see him without his sunglasses on, bare-faced and exposed) and here they stood at that same precipice and Dave was losing his balance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>God help him. Klaus had been waiting for months for Dave to take the first step, but as they stood there cold and soaked through and that curl of heat in the pit of Klaus's stomach (in his stomach in his chest in his head) and Dave's hands cupping his jaw like it was some kind of delicate precious thing and Dave's tongue in his mouth… as they stood there at the precipice in their heads and Dave started to lose his balance Klaus couldn't stop himself from nudging him over the edge.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sound he made was almost entirely involuntary - the kind of noise he'd been holding back for weeks and months (and maybe years) - a high, needy noise at the back of his throat, cracking and desperate as he moved to press himself in tight against Dave's cool slick skin. Dave had always been… he'd always been solid (like a tree, Klaus thought - like a rock, like a building) but he hadn't stopped working out since the accident. He'd had that six weeks of inactivity and then he'd been bored so he'd thrown himself into it so when Klaus's hands crept uncertainly over his waist he was solid, unyielding, slippery with rain and textured a little from scar tissue but as Dave pushed into his mouth Klaus's hands tightened over the curve of his hips in a quiet gesture of frantic need.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't know if the universe fights for soulmates to be together, but I damn well know you're mine," Dave breathed against him, mouth moving to press lips to his jaw, to his cheekbone, to his temple, to his eyebrow, "And I'm with you because you save my life every damn day just by existing, and this whole time—" He clenched his jaw, shut his eyes, pulled Klaus up and kissed him again instead of speaking.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This whole time what?" Klaus managed, forcing himself to pull away. Studying Dave's face. Dave could tell if he was lying by the sound of his heart, but in the meantime Dave had lost whatever poker face he'd once had - and Klaus watched him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This whole time I've been worried you're only with me because you feel responsible for me," Dave stuttered, hands drifting down to curl over Klaus's shoulders. "I never want to push you because maybe if I push you you'll - you'll leave, and what am I gonna do without you?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Get a seeing eye dog? Dave, you don't have to depend on me forever, it's not like—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You're not a seeing eye dog," Dave interrupted, voice rough, hands tightening. "I'm not talking about when we go grocery shopping or when you help me pick out clothes or, or when you pull me back from traffic, or any of that stuff. I mean if you leave - if you leave, what am I gonna do without you?" His head tipped back, an unconscious gesture that Klaus recognized as helplessness. "What would I do without you, Klaus Hargreeves? And so I don't want to push you, I don't want to shove you away on accident - but I just really want to know what you look like, and if what I imagine is right" he finished stupidly, shaking his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus reached up. Slid a hand around Dave's wrist. "I'm sorry," he said, voice quiet. "I can't—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't mean with my eyes." Dave let out a cough of wry laughter. "I've been at the fifth stage of grief for a while now. I mean…" His hands tightened. Smoothed down over Klaus's arms - over his biceps, fingers tracing the curving of his muscles under his shirt, under his skin. Grip loosening over his elbows. "I mean I want to take all your clothes off and figure out what you look like. The way I figure out what things look like. The way I figure out what everything looks like."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For a second a flash of memory shot through Klaus's head - earlier that day in the music shop, Dave sitting in the chair awkwardly with the cello between his legs. He hadn't even taken the bow out yet, he was just… touching it, dragging his fingertips lightly along every curve and ridge, running his hands delicately down the strings (letting the tiny ridges scrape his skin), pressing his knees gently on either side of it to get a feel for the size, the shape, the feel, the mass, the weight in his hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Okay," Klaus managed, that curl of heat suddenly tightening like a spring in his stomach. He'd never been jealous of a musical instrument before that day, and now Dave wanted to touch him like he'd touched that cello? "Okay," Klaus said again, even as Dave sighed and curved down into him to press their lips together again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was cold, he was soaked through, he was freezing, but Dave's fingertips on him were almost like brands - white-hot and aching as they dragged slow down his arms, hands tightening to curve around the tuck of Klaus's wrists, fingers splaying to brush over his palms and lace through his fingers to feel his skin and his joints and the whorls and ridges of his fingerprints. Dave's hands closed briefly over his own, holding heat in against his palms as Dave used that grip to tug Klaus in a little closer and press his tongue into Klaus's mouth like he was trying to drink him up or breathe him in or maybe just absorb him a little bit so they'd never really be apart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hands over his own loosening and curving in to find his hips. Dave had curled an arm around his waist before. He tucked a hand into one crooked elbow, he'd reached out for him anxiously in the middle of a crowd, he'd pulled in tight on the subway like he was worried that without constant unbroken contact Klaus would vanish in a puff of vapor. He'd curled an arm around his waist before but now he wasn't worried, he wasn't anxious - he was just wanting, fingers hooking over Klaus's hipbones to trace him. Getting a feel for his size, his shape, his mass, the weight of Klaus in his hands like he had with that cello.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave pulled back a little, their lips separating with an almost imperceptible popping noise, and sucked in a quick breath as he dragged his hands up Klaus's hips, under the hem of Klaus's shirt, trailing over the skin of his waist. He curved his thumbs curiously into the V of Klaus's hips, feeling out his muscles and bones and tendons, molding his hands to slide smooth over him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Do I look like the cello?" Klaus breathed, trying to make a joke. The rain was still coming down hard outside but he could barely hear it over the sound of his pulse in his ears.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave didn't say anything. He just pulled his hands up (fingers on skin, sliding slow over every curved muscle every rib every divot between tendons) to tug up on Klaus's sweater. Klaus gave in, lifting his arms - letting Dave pull the wet cloth from his chest, from his head, from his arms. Now they were in the same state of almost-undress and Klaus could feel the chill as the air moved over the wetness on his skin - but Dave curved in again, pressing a hot open-mouthed kiss to his cheekbone. Running his hands over the curves of Klaus's shoulders.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You have to tell me if this is okay," Dave sighed against Klaus's skin. He moved down slow, one hand cupped carefully over the ball of Klaus's shoulder and the other curved carefully over Klaus's jaw - thumb brushing curiously over the smooth expanse of skin there to feel the softness of his cheeks and the curve of his orbital bone and the fine hairs at his temples. "Your heartbeat doesn't tell me anything, it's just… it's just fast. It's been this fast almost since we walked in."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This is okay," Klaus said quickly, breathlessly - Dave was exploring his throat with lips and tongue and he had never once dared imagine that this could happen to him so yes, yes, this was okay. This was fine. Fantastic, even. "Do - do I look like the cello?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave's hand inched down his jaw, down his throat, dipping fingertips into the divot of his collarbone, curving a palm over the swell of Klaus's pectoral muscles until his thumb was rolling curiously over Klaus's nipple. Klaus had been trying to keep his breath as even as he could, keep as calm as he could, keep from squirming too much when Dave's attention grazed over ticklish areas and sensitive places and that one spot right under the lobe of his ear that could make him see stars. But Dave rolled a thumb curiously over Klaus's nipple and he couldn't keep his breath even. He couldn't keep calm, couldn't keep from squirming, couldn't keep in the choked gasp of contentment and desire.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No," Dave said into the skin of his throat, voice rough as he moved his hand back again to twist around gentle and careful and insistent - each tiny movement dragging another breath of need from Klaus's lungs. "No, you don't look anything like that cello. Nothing looks as good as you."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh," Klaus sighed, reaching forward despite himself to curve his hands over Dave's waist again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It took a few seconds for Klaus to realize that Dave was pushing him, steering him gently back toward the door of the bedroom. The door always stood open because Dave never had any reason to close it and so they moved through it easily, Dave navigating entirely from memory as he never broke contact, tongue in Klaus's mouth, hands dragging down his body to grip down firm and gentle on his hips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus's calves bumped up against Dave's mattress with Dave's tongue still in his mouth, and he tried letting himself fall back - but Dave caught him, kept him upright. "I want to undress you," Dave mumbled, and - god, was he embarrassed? "I've been… I've been thinking about this for months, Klaus. I want to undress you. I want to figure out what you look like. What all of you looks like. Is that okay?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah." God, the word came out almost like a whine. He'd been watching Dave for months now - the careful way he held things, the way his lips moved when he read braille, the way he paused to listen - and god, god, he wanted Dave to hold him like that. He wanted Dave to read him like a book. He wanted Dave to pause over him and listen and drink him in. "Yeah. Yeah, please, god—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave's hands moved, trailing just a little faster around his waist (a little less patient, a little more urgent) to slip careful fingers between Klaus's waist and the fly of his jeans, fingertips struggling with the button. The button came free as Dave bent down to nuzzle against Klaus's head, brushing his lips along Klaus's hairline like he was tracing out the shape of it, memorizing every curve. The button came free, the zipper came down, and Dave gently tugged at the soaked denim until it peeled free Klaus's legs enough to slide down to the floor, pooling around his ankles.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Can I," Dave stuttered out, hands pausing at the tilt of Klaus's hips, "can I take your underwear off?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For a second Klaus couldn't quite think. He wasn't sure he'd been thinking at all for a while now, but especially now he couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, he arched up against Dave's chest and tugged at Dave's jeans and breathed yes into Dave's collarbone as he yanked desperately at the button, at the zipper, at the belt loops. For a second Klaus couldn't quite think, and as Dave stepped out of his jeans and slipped his hands under the elastic waistband of Klaus's colorful briefs (carefully, uncertainly, missing at first and having to try again) he overbalanced.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus overbalanced, tipping gently backward onto the mattress as Dave pulled the boxer briefs down his thighs. He hit the springs and they knocked the breath out of him, the waistband of his underwear catching briefly on his erection (god, when had that happened?), Dave pulled the briefs off his ankles and his feet and dropped them carelessly on the floor and bent over him hungrily - sinking to his knees next to the bed to lean forward and kiss down the center of Klaus's chest, hands splayed under his shoulder blades to pull him in close.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a part of him that thought that maybe he shouldn't make too much noise - Dave's hearing was so sensitive, it was how he got around, it was the way he'd learned how to live the kind of life he wanted to keep living - but the rest of him was pretty sure that that was really really fucking ridiculous because he was naked and soaked to the bone from the January rain and Dave was on his knees between his legs leaning in and pressing the heat of his mouth to Klaus's nipple, tongue curling—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh fuck," Klaus choked, slipping his fingers into Dave's hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave pulled back, tucking in his chin nervously. "Is that - is that bad? I can—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Jesus." Klaus tightened his hand just slightly in Dave's hair, just enough to signal that it was okay, that he could stay. "Jesus, no, that was - that was good, Dave. That was really good. Listen—" He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. "Okay, listen - if I don't tell you to stop—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Holy shit," Dave interrupted suddenly, running his hands down Klaus's waist, over his hips, down the outsides of his thighs. His fingers tightened, fingertips dragging over the skin. "Holy shit Klaus we've been dating since September and it's January - how fucking long have you had a body like this?!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus looked down at himself. "Uh - I-I guess for a really long time? I've been through a lot of stuff and I mean, and—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Fuck," Dave moaned, staggering to his feet and lifting Klaus bodily up off the mattress, pushing him up the bed so his shoulders were against the headboard. "Fuck, Klaus, holy fuck. Holy fuck you're so fucking beautiful."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus drew in a shuddering breath, shoving himself up on his elbows as Dave curved in over the bed to follow him. "What? I'm—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You're beautiful," Dave repeated, settling on his knees between Klaus's legs and bending down to press a kiss to his mouth. "You're so fucking beautiful. I mean - I knew you were beautiful, before, I knew I loved your voice and I loved your hands and your waist and your lips—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Dave," Klaus protested weakly, muscles loosening under the heat of Dave's attention. "Dave, I'm not—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I knew you were beautiful," Dave said again, voice going low and rough in his throat as he started working his way down Klaus's throat, to his shoulder, to his collarbone, to his chest, to the smooth plane of his stomach, "and I knew I loved you—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The choked out gasp of pleasure came out of Klaus's lungs without permission as Dave hooked his elbows under Klaus's legs to pull his knees up, as Dave's breath ghosted hot and desperate over the urgency of his erection, as Dave bit gently into the thin skin of his inner thigh. Klaus arched up, hands twisting in Dave's hair. "Dave—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"—but you're just so fucking perfect," Dave murmured into Klaus's skin. "God you're just - you're so smooth and you're so warm and you taste so good—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Dave, please—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dave slowed, breath coming quick and rough as he pushed himself up on his hands. "S-sorry. Sorry. Do you need me to stop? Because we can stop, we can - we can slow down, it's—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, it's not…" Klaus drew in a shaking breath, running a hand over his face. "I'm just– I don't - I don't know how to process it, I'm not that beautiful, you can't even—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't need to see you to know you're beautiful," Dave interrupted. "Klaus, please - please can I just—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Just what?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't know." Dave's head bent downward in the dim light of the bedroom, the light through the window twisting and strange with the rain trailing down the glass. "I don't… I don't know what I want to do. I just want to touch you and figure out what you look like and tell you how I see you and I - I want to make you make that noise again."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus took a deep breath. Leaned back against the headboard. Carded his fingers through Dave's hair - gentle, careful, scratching his nails lightly over Dave's scalp in that way that made Dave shudder and sigh and close his eyes with the contact. "Do you…" He swallowed. "Do you want to - to get off? We don't have to do anything, we can just—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I want to get off," Dave groaned, leaning forward to press his forehead against the smooth plane of Klaus's chest, hands slipping up Klaus's hips again. "I want to get off, and I want to get you off, and I want… I don't know, I don't know how to do this, I - I've never been with a guy before, not like this I mean."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus sat up. Moved his hands down to curl over Dave's shoulders, guiding him carefully over and around and down. "Sit back against the pillows," he murmured. "I'm going to take your underwear off, is that okay?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah." Dave melted a little under his hands, obedient and relaxed and trusting as he allowed Klaus to steer him over to recline back against the headboard. "Yeah, yeah you can - oh god—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The boxer briefs slid down his thighs, over his knees, Klaus tugging them off to drop them over the side of the bed before curving over to swing a leg over Dave's hips, keeping himself suspended a little - balancing himself with one palm flat against the wall over the headboard, just over Dave's head. Dave's skin - golden and textured slightly with the scars and dimpled with the curve and ripple of his muscles - Dave's skin shone slick with rain and a little bit of sweat and seemed to almost shimmer in the nighttime glow of the city through the rain-spattered window. Klaus's breath caught in his chest and for a second he was - he was just so furious, furious that Dave didn't know how fucking beautiful he looked—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Klaus," Dave breathed, smoothing his palms up Klaus's thighs to curl his hands hard over his hips, tugging him very very gently downward. "Klaus, please—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I love you," Klaus said, leaning down, curving down, settling his hips in tight against Dave's pelvis as he cupped his hands (careful careful careful) around Dave's jaw. Pulling his face up. Pressing soft, feather-light kisses to the corner of his mouth, to the place that dimpled when he smiled, to the place on his left cheek where the scar tissue started pulling at the skin, to the streak of silver over his right cheekbone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I love you," Klaus said, losing his breath as he starting rolling his hips, their erections slipping together easily in the slide of rain and sweat and pre-come. Dave choked out a gasp under him and arched up, responding to the heat and the friction so beautifully, and Klaus pressed his lips to the outer corner of Dave's left eye. To his eyelid, webbed with damaged skin and healed burns. To the notch on his eyebrow he'd gotten from facing down that bomb and coming out the other side alive.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I love you," Klaus said, voice thick in his throat, in his chest; his hips stuttering as the coil of heat in his stomach tightened desperately; Dave arching and moaning under him, between his legs, hands clutching on his waist for another few seconds before reaching up to find Klaus's face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pulling him in. Catching his mouth. Kissing him hard, tongue curling urgently between his lips as the heat in Klaus's stomach exploded through the rest of his body (like a bubble popping, like a flower uncurling in the morning, like a bomb) and he choked, losing his balance and his breath and his mind all at once as he tipped over onto Dave's chest and pulsed his release over Dave's stomach.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Fuck," Dave gasped out (probably - everything seemed so far away, Klaus's body was somewhere else, his head was somewhere else, his lungs were somewhere else) and rutted upward in one last desperate jerk as he followed Klaus over the edge into oblivion.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was thirty seconds, it was a minute, it was a year before Klaus could find his breath enough to push himself up off of Dave's chest. Dave sighed a thick breath and looped his arms over Klaus's shoulders, twisting his fingers through Klaus's hair to tug him in again and kiss him carefully.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I love you too," Dave said.</span>
</p>
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